Isolated
by Lynse
Summary: It's just a wish that's been granted with the wrong twist, but for Danny, it's a nightmare that's become reality. He's stuck as Phantom, his family's hunting him, and everyone who can help him is gone...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Set somewhere between _Claw of the Wild_ and _D-stabilized_, this is one of those stories where you see a bit of the climax and then you're taken back to see how it all began and how things could have possibly gone so wrong. So, this first bit is a short teaser before the real story begins. Well, actually, it's already begun; we just need to catch up….

_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I make no money from this work of fiction!_

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><p>"Please let this be a dream, please let this be a dream, please let this be a dream." It wasn't a prayer, at least not in Danny's mind. It was…more of a mantra, or something like that. "Please let this be a dream."<p>

Danny was in his phantom form. And, normally, that was great. He liked the freedom being a ghost gave him. He'd always wanted to fly as a kid. Mind you, he'd thought about flying in rockets rather than just flying, but this worked, too. It didn't mean he couldn't be an astronaut when he was older. And, heck, though he hadn't particularly liked the reasons why, his ghost form had given him the chance to go into space _and_ to fly a rocket.

But now?

Now, it was dark. Now, it was quiet, except for his own muttering and quiet breathing. Now, he was the prey. And not Skulker's, not this time. That was just easy, even if the self-proclaimed Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter did occasionally get inventive. No, he was the prey, and, admittedly, there was only one hunter, but he was also the only target. And his ghostly glow was enough of a beacon in the dark, but he needed to stick to the dark. His white hair would be just another giveaway in the moonlight.

To top it off, he was having trouble remaining invisible for extended periods of time. He wasn't used to it; he didn't have much endurance, for all the practice he had. He usually just went invisible long enough to get away from whoever was chasing him or to get around them or behind them or whatever he needed. He was used to fighting back.

But this time, he couldn't. Because the person who was hunting him wasn't just another ghost. The hunter, or rather, huntress, was human.

And it wasn't Valerie, and he wouldn't really be worried about any of the out-of-town ghost hunters that had shown up to the First Annual Fenton Ghost Hunters' Convention, not even the Guys in White when it really came down to it. Trouble was, the person who was hunting him was his mother.

Granted, she didn't exactly know who she was hunting. She thought Danny Phantom was just another ghost who terrorized the town, that evil ghost kid which some of the townspeople mistakenly thought was a hero. She had no idea that she was hunting her own son, Danny Fenton.

Danny held his breath and listened hard for a moment. It shouldn't be this hard. There was hardly a breath of wind, and his mother certainly wouldn't have the advantage of floating a few inches above the ground. He should be able to hear her coming.

The faint whine of a weapon priming caught his attention, and he finally caught sight of his mom crouched in the bushes, the Fenton Bazooka aimed at him. He dodged the first blast as it came and went intangible to avoid the next one. "Please let this be a dream," he muttered. Then, hovering in mid-air halfway up the school wall, he called out to his mom, "Wait! Stop! I don't want to fight you!"

It didn't work, of course. How many times had he said the same thing to Valerie? That hadn't stopped her, either. The Red Huntress still had it out for him. He was just a ghost. An evil ghost, because all ghosts were evil.

Maddie Fenton left the relative safety of the bushes, but her aim didn't waiver. "What have you done to my family, ghost?" she demanded.

"I haven't done _anything_ to your family, Mo—uh, Maddie!" Danny shouted, dodging the blast she sent at him for that response.

"Don't lie to me, ghost," she ground out. "First you took my son—"

"You don't understand!"

"—then my daughter, then my husband—"

"I didn't! It wasn't me! I'm not doing this!" He waved a hand around him. "I don't even know _how_ this was done." He drifted back down to the ground. His mother kept her weapon trained on him, but at least she was letting him speak. She probably wanted answers he couldn't give her. "I'm caught in this, too," he said. "Just like you."

"You're lying," Maddie said quietly.

"I'm _not_," Danny insisted. "Why would I put myself in a situation where you could catch me again? I don't want to be ripped apart 'molecule by molecule'," he said, quoting his father. He shook his head. "We're the only ones here. We need to work together."

She narrowed her eyes and her lips thinned. He knew that look. She wasn't going to listen to him. Before she could get off another shot, he turned heel and dove through the wall of the school. He needed to find some way to get her to listen to him, and that wasn't going to be easy to do when she thought he was behind this, whatever this was.

Danny groaned. To think he'd thought the ghost hunters' convention was going to be his major worry for today. Considering how things were now, that had definitely turned out to be the least of his worries.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: First, thank you to everyone who's taken the time to review or seen fit to favourite this story (already! I hope I can live up to your expectations!). Second, when I say 'auditorium', I'm thinking of the room in _Public Enemies_ that had removable chairs (but still a stage), though most other episodes with that room with the stage seem to have permanent chairs. Do forgive me, or, better yet, tell me what room I'm actually thinking of so I can change it.

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><p><em>Earlier that day….<em>

"Danny, sweetie, you have to get up. We've got a big day ahead of us."

Danny Fenton groaned and tried to bury his head in his pillow, but his mother was already pulling the sheet away from him and tugging on his precious pillow. He didn't want to get up. He'd just gotten to bed half an hour ago. Not that she knew that; neither his mother nor his father knew of his nightly—and, all too often, daily—activities. Only his sister, Jasmine, knew, along with his friends, Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley.

They were the only three people he trusted with his secret. They weren't the only ones who _knew_ it—he'd made enough enemies over the past year and a half that a whole lot of people knew it. Not that all of those people could be defined as _people_, exactly. The vast majority of them were ghosts, or at the very least, half ghosts. Vlad Masters, his arch enemy, was a half ghost.

Just like he was, ever since that lab accident.

His life probably would be a lot easier if his parents weren't inventors and avid ghost hunters, if they had never invented the Fenton Ghost Portal in the first place, or if Sam hadn't convinced him to check it out, but his life would certainly be a lot more dull. Besides, after Sam's wish that one time, he knew he didn't really regret any of it. And, as Danny Phantom, he could defend Amity Park. His parents wouldn't be able to hold off all the ghosts on their own.

Not that they were the only ghost hunters in town. There was also the Red Huntress, who was actually his classmate, Valerie Gray. Of course, she, like his parents, was also set on destroying his ghost persona on the basis that he was a ghost and all ghosts were evil, but he'd long since realized that some things probably wouldn't change, even if he wanted them to.

Still. He might've gotten two hours of sleep, _maybe_ two and a half in total. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged along to a ghost hunters' convention, for crying out loud. Okay, so everyone else there would be amateurs compared to his parents, and he had no intentions of going ghost unless a ghost _did_ show up, and it would have to be a pretty stu—

No, scratch that. With the types of ghosts that invaded Amity Park on a regular basis, one probably _would_ show up today.

Great. That would be just what he needed. Maybe he'd get lucky, and it would just be the Box Ghost or something, and his parents could take care of it. Except he hardly ever was lucky, and if it looked like he was lucky, something big and distinctly unlucky for him usually followed what had started out as a spell of good luck.

"Do I have to go?" Danny muttered into the mattress.

"Oh, honey, why wouldn't you want to go?"

Danny turned his head and blinked up at his mother. Lying and saying he was sick probably wasn't a good idea. The last thing he needed was a trip to the doctor's office on top of everything else. His body temperature hadn't been normal since the accident, something he figured was not only because he was half ghost but because, as a ghost, he had an ice core. And while his parents—mercifully—attributed that change to a side effect of the accident, writing it off because he didn't appear to have any harmful effects even if his body temperature was a few degrees below normal, he always seemed to have to tell the story whenever he went for a check-up and someone new was there, and he just didn't want to take that risk.

Besides, his mom wouldn't waste a second before shoving a thermometer in his mouth and doing her own check-up first, and if his dad got involved….

"I didn't sleep well last night," Danny admitted. It was the truth. It wasn't the whole truth, but it was the truth. That counted for something, right?

Madeline Fenton pulled her son up and into a hug. "Was it bad dreams, sweetie?"

Thankfully, no. Nocturne had _so_ not been involved. "Um, no. I just couldn't fall asleep." He pulled away and looked at his mother. "So can I just stay home? Please?"

"It's only for a few hours," Maddie said. "Your father was hoping you and Jazz could help us demonstrate some of our inventions."

Oh, great. Another reason to try to get out of this. "But I—"

"Danny-boy!" Right on cue, Jack Fenton stuck his head into Danny's room. "Why aren't you up and dressed yet? We need to go and set up for the First Annual Fenton Ghost Hunters' Convention!"

"_First annual_—?" Danny repeated, staring at his dad. Man, he should've paid more attention when they were talking about it instead of tuning it out. This was a rather nasty surprise. "This is going to be an _annual_ thing?" An _annual_ ghost hunters' convention? Hosted by his parents? He was going to be dragged to this every year until he went away to college?

Aw, crud. The day just kept getting better and better.

"That's what we're hoping, honey," his mom explained. "We'll be able to exchange information with fellow ghost hunters and educate the public of Amity Park."

Danny decided against pointing out that the last time 'world renowned' ghost hunters had shown up in Amity Park, it would've been more of a lesson to the public on what _not_ to do than what _to_ do.

"Just get dressed, Danny," his mother said, ruffling his hair with one hand. "It'll be fun."

Yeah. Fun. He'd have a riot. He'd probably set off some sort of sensor just walking through the door….

Sighing, Danny resisted the urge to flop back into bed the minute his parents left his room, closing the door behind them. Instead, he pulled off his pyjamas and replaced them with his usual jeans-and-T-shirt combo. He might not be able to get out of going, but he could at least be comfortable. Sorta. As comfortable as he could get surrounded by ghost hunters who would be after him if they got even the slightest inkling of who and what he was.

He glanced at the mirror above his dresser. Bleary blue eyes stared back at him, half-hidden behind his black hair. Danny pushed it away, but it flopped right back down. Oh, well. His mother was more likely to attack him with the Fenton Foamer than with a comb, anyway. Actually, his sister was more likely to suck him into the Fenton Thermos again…. To her credit, though, her aim had gotten much better. She hadn't done that for a while now, and the last time had just been an honest mistake. Or, at least, that's what she'd claimed.

At least the number of inventions that worked on him when he was in his human form was limited. The Spectre Deflector, the Booo-merang, the Ghost Gabber—things like that. He didn't need to worry about being sucked into the Fenton Thermos or the Fenton Weasel when he wasn't Danny Phantom.

Danny headed downstairs, but he'd hardly taken two steps into the kitchen before his father appeared, burdened with an assortment of ghost hunting gear. "Here, Danny," he said, dropping the mess into his son's arms. "Hold this for me, would you? I need to go get the Ghost Gloves!"

"Um, yeah, sure, Dad," Danny said, trying to shift things so he could actually see where he was going.

"I'll take it, Danny." Jazz. "I've had a piece of toast already. I'd recommend that for you, too. I know you don't like toast, but the milk's gone funny." And, miracle of miracles, Jasmine Fenton put down her latest psychology book and took all the ghost catching gadgets from him—without managing to tangle the Fenton Fisher in her long, red hair.

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny said. He trusted his sister, at least when it came to the quality of food in their household, but he checked the milk, anyway, picking up the carton from the counter and opening it to peek inside. He _really_ didn't want toast, and he didn't want dry cereal, either.

The milk gave off a faint green glow.

He sighed and threw it in the trash. He was skipping breakfast. Again.

"Danny, are you ready?" Maddie stuck her head into the kitchen. "We need to get going."

"Yeah," Danny said. He followed his mother out to the RV—or, as his father called it, the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle—and froze as she opened the passenger door. "Hold on, Dad's not driving, is he?"

"We're running late," came the reply.

Dad was driving, then. Danny climbed inside and buckled up immediately, and not a moment too soon. His father was off, weaving his way through traffic and breaking who knew how many laws to get there. The convention, Danny remembered, had been scheduled to be held in the town hall, but last week's fight against Skulker had left a bit too much damage behind. At least if it had been Desiree, he might've remembered to wish some of the damage away before sucking her into the thermos, but with his track record, he probably wouldn't've.

As it stood, though, he was being taken to school on a Saturday, since the backup location had been the auditorium of Casper High.

Danny obediently carried in everything his father gave him, but he was more concerned with figuring out who else was here. The Guys in White hadn't turned up yet, though he had no doubt they would at some point, if only to try to rip off his parents' inventions. The Extreme Ghostbreakers had shown up again, as had the Groovy Gang and Scaredy Cat. Somehow, he still doubted they'd pose much of a threat for him—or any ghost, for that matter. There was another group there, too, the Ghostfacers, but from the looks of them, they hadn't seen a lot of ghosts, either.

So, all _he_ had to do was wait for Sam and Tucker to show up, and then they could sneak out and get as far away from here as possible. Well, they could at least head to Sam's and watch some movies. Tucker was _still_ raving about the home theatre her family had in the basement, and he'd found out about it over a year ago. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Sam's family had access to all the new technology that Tucker was always drooling over.

Then again, maybe they could play the latest version of Doomed. Danny had a feeling Sam still hadn't told them all the cheat codes she knew; she beat him and Tucker every time they played against each other, even when he and Tucker tried to gang up against her. Heck, she'd even managed to beat him the first time they'd all played it together, and he'd actually gone into the game and used his ghost powers.

He still hadn't lived that one down.

Okay, maybe he shouldn't suggest Doomed, but still. Sam and Tucker were good friends. If he couldn't sneak off, for whatever reason, they'd stick with him and cover for him if something went wrong. He didn't want something to go wrong, but considering what tended to happen when he was around, chances are something would. It was pretty much Murphy's Law at its finest.

"It's too bad Vladdy couldn't be here for this," Jack commented as he started setting up the gadgets Danny had brought. "He would've loved this."

Oh, yes. Vlad Masters would have so loved this, especially if his ghost persona, Vlad Plasmius, was detected by the same sensors that kept picking _him_ up. Idly wondering what excuse Vlad had used to get out of town—especially since, last time, Vlad had been the one to set all the ghost hunters after Danny Phantom in the first place by setting a million dollar prize on his head—Danny asked, "Why can't he be here? He's the mayor. He should be, shouldn't he?"

"Well, you know Vlad," Jack said. "He's got more things on his plate than just being the best mayor in our town's history—" Danny had to bite back a retort to that one, but his dad literally only knew half the story "—and he told me he had previous engagements elsewhere that he just couldn't break. All those things with VladCo, I expect. It's hard work being a billionaire."

"Right." Danny carefully put the last thing he'd been carrying, the Fenton Bazooka, onto the table. "I'm going to go see if I can find Sam and Tucker, okay?" The convention wasn't open to the public yet, but would be soon enough. If Sam and Tucker were here already, they might be able to sneak off before they got enlisted to help everyone else finish setting up.

"Just be sure to be back in time to test out some of our equipment," was Jack's cheerful reply.

Danny made a mental note to drag his feet as long as possible, mumbled an agreement to his father, and took off. He had a horrible feeling that 'testing' some of the equipment involved not just demonstrating it and showcasing, say, how the Fenton Peeler was supposed to work, but actually getting caught in the line of fire. The nets, for instance, which were specially lined to encase ghosts (at least so they couldn't phase through it) worked just as well on humans. Even Jazz had been caught in those a time or two.

To Danny's immense relief, he spotted Sam and Tucker on the school grounds. Tucker, who had evidently been watching and cataloguing on his PDA the various technologies he spotted being brought in, let out a low whistle as Danny approached. "Man, you'd better be careful," he warned his friend. "Some of that stuff might actually work on you. Something beyond your parents' stuff."

Danny glanced over his shoulder to see a large container labelled SALT being hauled into the building.

"Some of the other things, I mean," Tucker amended, following Danny's gaze.

"Oh, come on, he has no intentions of giving anyone any opportunity to see for sure, do you, Danny?" Sam asked.

Before Danny could respond, however, a familiar chill crept over him and his ghost sense went off, his cold breath fogging in the warm air. "Aw, crud," he muttered, looking around to see who the culprit was. "What are the chances that these guys can handle it?"

"Well, unless they've really improved…." Sam trailed off. The Fentons were the only reputable ghost hunters that had shown up. The Guys in White would have been the only other ones to even remotely pose a threat, but they were still conspicuous by their absence. For all Danny knew, they were using decoy ghosts in hopes of drawing out more powerful ones—like him. It wouldn't have been the first time.

Then, finally, a flicker of good luck came his way, and a familiar cry reached Danny's ears. "I am the Box Ghost!"

Danny and his friends snickered as the ghost in question continued ranting about corrugated cardboard boxes of doom, of being master of all things box-like and square. "I think," Tucker said, voicing all their thoughts, "that even they might be able to handle this one."

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><p>"Stupid job," Valerie muttered as she headed towards the Nasty Burger. She didn't really hate her job; on the contrary, she had actually begun to enjoy it. Just a little bit. She wasn't the mascot anymore, at least, and even when she had been, Danny Fenton had….<p>

All right. Fine. She'd admit it. She still sorta liked him. Not _liked_ liked. After all, everyone knew he and Sam Manson were going to wake up and get together sometime. She'd even caught them making out a while ago, though they both still vehemently denied all implications that they were already together. But Danny was a good friend, and she appreciated that.

Unfortunately, he and Sam and Tucker still stood up for the ghost boy, and they'd never seen eye-to-eye when it came to him. Danny Phantom was the reason she'd needed a job in the first place. He was the reason she was a ghost hunter. He'd lost her father his job. He'd lost her her social life. Granted, she at least knew now that her 'friends' hadn't actually been friends; they wouldn't have deserted her the minute that had happened if that had been the case. But it had taken a while to adjust to being a social outcast instead of a popular kid, and she still hadn't quite gotten the hang of things, but perhaps that was because she had poured so much of her life into ghost hunting.

When she'd heard about the ghost hunters' convention the Fentons were hosting, she'd wanted to go. Just to…look around. Get a feel of things. See where her technology—well, the technology she'd been given—fit in with everyone else's. Maybe pick up a few tips or some new tricks to try when she ran into Phantom again.

She was hunting ghosts because of Phantom, yes. She still wanted her revenge on him. Not as strongly as she once had, admittedly, but that wasn't the point. Point was, he was the reason she'd picked up this hobby, but it was just as much his fault that she couldn't enjoy it. She had to work. Because her family needed the money, because he'd lost her father his job. True, Daddy had gotten it back, but that wasn't the point, either.

No one would take her shift. Who wanted to, on a Saturday morning? She'd drawn the short straw. Normally, she wouldn't have minded, but this was the Saturday of the ghost hunters' convention, and she was missing it. By the time she got off work, it would nearly be over, and she'd have missed all the good stuff like the demonstrations.

"Sometimes I just wish," she groused, "that Phantom would end up in a situation where he's forced to show his true colours. Then, people would see him for who he really is." He'd been Public Enemy Number One for a while, and people were still saying he was a hero. Okay, fine, he'd done a few good things. She could give him that. But she, for one, wasn't convinced he'd changed his tune. Isn't that what ghosts wanted you to think? "I mean," she continued, still grumbling to herself, "with all the ghost hunters in town, you'd think someone would catch him. I get that he's acting good and all, but I'd love to see him stuck on his own and getting what's coming to him." She snorted. "Not that I'd get to see it even if it _did_ happen."

Valerie sent a longing glance in the direction of the school. If only…. But it didn't matter. What did Daddy always say to her when she was in one of these moods? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. She had to focus now. She couldn't afford to daydream. She had a job to do, and with no ghost in sight, she had no reason not to do it.

Heaving a sigh, Valerie went inside.

What she failed to notice, however, was the faint beeping coming from her bag. It was, in fact, coming from the very device that she had buried in it this morning, tightly wrapped in a ball of non-work clothes to keep it from her dad's sight. He'd almost caught her with it earlier, when he'd stuck his head in the door to ask if she was ready to go, and he didn't exactly approve of her ghost hunting. It was dangerous, and he didn't want his little girl doing such dangerous things.

But wishing itself could be a very dangerous thing, and Valerie had done just that. She'd also had the misfortune to do it in the presence of a particular ghost, the very one whose presence the device in her bag had tried to warn her about. After all, this was Amity Park. Wishes in Amity Park had come true before, and not always with the most desirable consequences.

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><p>Desiree, the wishing ghost, swirled into human sight and grinned as she swelled with power. She'd been delighted to make her latest escape from the Ghost Zone, and equally delighted to realize that no one in the Fenton family was home. That had given her free reign to wander wherever she liked, seeking out people who might not be watching their words. Humans were particularly bad with that; ghosts, or at least the ghosts who knew her, were quite careful. They were well aware of how terrible a wish could turn out, especially if she'd been tricked into granting one she didn't like.<p>

However, she didn't mind granting this particular wish. Quite aside from the fact that she grew more powerful with every wish she granted, she wasn't too impressed with Danny Phantom, either. The halfa had caught her in his confounded Fenton Thermos numerous times. And the wording of this wish had been suitably vague enough to allow her to have quite a bit of fun with this. She could get some of her own revenge on the ghost child with the granting of this particular wish.

There were many different ways that it could come out. She hesitated, examining her options for a moment—a luxury she so rarely had these days when she showed her face in Amity Park, what with the fact that the halfa was usually coming at her with ectoblasts by now. But he was busy right now, too busy to notice her drawing on a bit of magic and granting a wish.

It wasn't strictly ghostly magic she used for this one. Those wishes were predictable. They were amusing, and they served their purpose, but they were rather boring, really. Not to mention that they always turned out with a distinct taint, a twist that wasn't exactly the same as her own, and it wasn't a particular kink she enjoyed. On more than one occasion in the past, Danny Phantom had proven his ability to exploit those kinks. He'd been able to overcome them.

Desiree had been trapped in a bottle for countless human years, and she'd hardly been out of it before he'd sucked her into that dratted Fenton Thermos. It had become her new prison. True, it probably hadn't been for very long—he'd released her into the Ghost Zone soon enough, judging by what she'd heard upon her release—but every single time she came back, he managed to trap her again. She never had a chance to have any fun, never had a chance to do what she wanted to do before she was caught again.

It was beyond time that he knew what it felt like.

That, however, hadn't been the human's wish.

Unfortunately.

But even if Desiree couldn't grant her own wish, she could throw something at Phantom that he wouldn't be expecting. A certain type of magic existed in the human world, the sort that had taken what had been left of her as a human and helped her to become a wishing ghost. When she'd first become aware of it again after her long spell of imprisonment, when she'd first felt a trace of it tickle her senses, she'd searched for some. It was rare, and tricky, and it hid well, but her diligence had paid off. She'd managed to draw some wild magic to her, right here, to Amity Park.

It was barely a pinch, hardly anything next to her own brand of ghostly magic, but it would do the trick. It would weave its way through her spell. She wouldn't be able to predict it, true; she wouldn't even be able to properly control it once she released it. But it would, without a doubt, provide her with a bit of amusement at the halfa's expense.

Desiree selected the scenario that best fit into the parameters of the human's wish and her own particular desired outcome while being the most likely to keep the wild magic in check. She did not want to give it an inch more free reign that she had to. She'd heard whispers, rumours of what had happened to others who had dared to try….

But she was different from the others. She was a wishing ghost. Compared to her, they hadn't been anything more than performers calling themselves magicians. They had been skilled in the art of illusion, of deception. She had spent her afterlife dealing with magic.

The power crackled in her hands. "So you have wished it," she intoned, "so shall it be." And, laughing, Desiree released her power, letting it seep through town and find its way to the unfortunate halfa.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Don't mind the appearance of the Ghostfacers; I've just been watching too much _Supernatural_ lately. And many thanks to anyone who takes the time to review.

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><p>The Box Ghost, it turned out, had been effectively dealt with. It had taken a while, considering it was the Box Ghost, but after what had, to judge by the sounds, been more than a few blasts from various bits of equipment, he had eventually been trapped in the Fenton Thermos.<p>

By Jazz.

"That's my little girl!" Jack kept saying. "Takes right after me!"

More likely her mother, Tucker thought. He'd seen Jack's aim. He'd been close to hitting Danny loads of times, but the only one who had ever actually managed to get him was Maddie. Well, and Jazz, but with Jazz, it had never been intentional.

Not that Jack Fenton wasn't smart. Tucker'd seen the inventions FentonWorks turned out, and Danny usually remembered who had come up with what and which ones had been a collaborative effort. And even when whatever it was turned out to have the complete opposite effect of what was desired, the work that went into it all was impressive.

"Has Jazz been practicing, Danny?" Sam asked, eyeing the girl carefully.

Danny shrugged. "Just with the virtual reality helmet, but she does it to keep up her cardio."

"Well, the Box Ghost has nothing on Nocturne," Tucker said. "She was pretty good then, too." He should know; he'd been the one left to fight with her when Danny and Sam had entered Nocturne's dream. "We just don't fight with her often enough to notice."

"Yeah, thankfully," Danny said. "I don't need her nagging me."

"I thought you said she was getting better," Sam said.

"She is," Danny admitted, "but that doesn't mean she's stopped."

"That's the curse of siblings, Danny, m'boy," Tucker said. "That's why Sam and I have it made."

"Yeah, I just have to avoid my parents. At least my grandma's on my side." Sam looked over at the various equipment displays and snorted. "Man, these guys don't know the first thing about ghosts, do they? Your parents look like the only competent ones in the whole building. Us aside, I mean."

"Now that's a scary thought," Danny said. He paused, then amended, "Well, not really, because if these people were any better, I'd probably be in trouble." He shivered suddenly, but shrugged it off when his ghost sense didn't go off. "C'mon, maybe if we get out now, we'll be able to avoid getting dragged into anything."

"We could go to the Nasty Burger," Tucker suggested. He checked his PDA, then said, "It's time for my 10:05 feeding, anyway." Besides, he'd gotten the shivers, too. It didn't mean anything, even in Amity Park. The old 'someone walking over your grave' saying was still just a saying, nothing more than a superstition.

Well, usually. But even if this shivering was something weird, Sam hadn't gotten it, so at least it wasn't contagious.

Then again, Tucker thought as Sam shivered, too, maybe it was like yawning. Noticing his eyes on her, Sam asked, "You don't have that prickling feeling, do you, on your neck or your arms?" Evidently he wasn't the only one who had noticed the shivering trend.

"Oh, great," Danny muttered. "Maybe we won't be leaving so fast, after all." He sighed. "You know, just once, I wish we could go. Or, better yet, I wish all these other guys would just go home. The _last_ thing I need is for anyone else to take up ghost hunting and decide to stake out Amity Park. My luck's bound to run out sometime, and someone good'll pick it up. Someone besides Valerie."

Tucker chuckled. "What, you still have a crush on her?" Danny glared at him, and he relented; it was much more fun to tease him and Sam, anyway, and Sam was already glowering at the suggestion of Danny and Valerie getting back together. She'd be glaring daggers if he moved to the next point and made a crack about the two of them being lovebirds. Not that it would be hard to do; he wanted to do it. But now, unfortunately, wasn't the time.

"Look," Sam said, "I know what you mean, Danny. I wish all these wanna-be ghost hunters would just go home, too, but there isn't anything that we can do about it. You'll just have to lay low."

"You know," said one of the men from the table nearest to them, "maybe we _should_ go home. It's obvious our expertise here is being wasted." He started to pack up all his metal—iron?—rods, which had been lying next to the salt.

Sam cringed. "Sorry." Under her breath, she added, "I didn't mean for them to hear that."

"No, you're not," the other man said frankly as he followed the lead of the first and tugged down the sign proclaiming them to be the Ghostfacers. "You think you're better than us, don't you?"

"Defensive much?" Sam muttered. Louder, she said, "Look, I'm sorry. Just…living in a town that's haunted on a regular basis? You kinda get some practice. It's survival instinct."

"So why are you here, if you think you know it all?" the first man challenged.

"Um…moral support?" She jerked her thumb towards Danny. "He's my friend, and he's a Fenton. He has to be here."

"A Fenton?" the second man repeated. "Why does that make a difference?"

Tucker snorted. "They've only invented half the things you see here."

"Yeah, well, we work with the traditional methods," the first man explained sourly. "Which, obviously, no one else cares about." He finished packing up the rods and then moved onto what looked suspiciously like a sawed off shotgun, complete with shells.

"Wait, traditional methods?" Danny repeated. "Like what? Blood blossoms?"

Tucker shuddered. He wasn't affected by blood blossoms, obviously, but he did not have a pleasant memory of the things. Cursed vegetables. Having to ingest thirty pounds of the things after eating meat all his life? It hadn't gone over as well as it might have.

"Never heard of those," the man said, answering Danny's question. He waved a hand dismissively. "No, we stick with things like iron and rock salt. Not that you'd be interested. You just want us to leave." He glanced around the room. "You, and probably all of them. You guys can all stick with your new technology. _We'll_ stick with what works."

"Some of that new technology works a little too well," Danny muttered. The three of them wandered away from the Ghostfacers, knowing that they had, for some reason, made up their minds to leave and wouldn't be dissuaded. Not that any of them were particularly keen on doing any dissuading. The less time Danny had to spend here, the safer he'd be. And the fewer people around, the sooner he'd be able to get away.

It wasn't long, however, before they realized that the other groups of ghost hunters, who had come specifically to Amity Park for this convention, were also packing up.

"This is, like, extremely boring, dude," one of the Extreme Ghostbreakers whined.

"I'm a _girl_!" his partner snapped. "But, you're, like, totally right."

Danny's parents weren't taking it too well. "I just don't understand it, Maddie," Jack was saying. "Everyone was thrilled when we were setting up." Maddie Fenton frowned, trying to figure out what was going on, and it was all too clear that she agreed with her husband.

Jazz joined Danny, Sam, and Tucker, still clutching the thermos that contained the Box Ghost. "Danny," she asked quietly, "you didn't do something, did you?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Jazz, I'm definitely going to use my ghost powers at a ghost hunters' convention."

"Yeah," Tucker added, "and besides, the only way Danny could've done that was if he'd overshadowed everybody, but none of them seemed to want to leave until Sam said she wished they'd all go home."

"After Danny said it," Sam quickly reminded them as the pieces started falling into place. After all, when it came to wishes, there was only one—

"But it can't be Desiree," Danny said. "My ghost sense hasn't gone off. She can't be close enough to hear you, or me, without me knowing about it."

"Well, maybe not," Jazz said, "but something's definitely up. We're going to be the only ones left here pretty soon." She bit her lip, then handed the thermos to Danny. "Here. You guys take care of this. I'm going to see if I can find anything out."

"Find anything out where?" Sam asked as Jazz dashed away. "This isn't going to be in a book."

"I don't think it's anything I can find, either," Tucker admitted, looking through his PDA. "Dude, we need to figure out what happened the old fashioned way." He grimaced. Even when they'd been caught in the Dark Ages in the Ghost Zone, his technology hadn't failed him. To think that it couldn't help him now, safely at home in Amity Park, was just disappointing.

Danny sighed. "At least," he said, "this got me out of demonstrating all my parents' stuff."

* * *

><p>Maddie Fenton watched silently as the last of the ghost hunters—the very same ones who had, just this morning, been so enthusiastic about the convention the Fentons were hosting—walked out the door.<p>

She might have understood if people had pulled out once they'd had to move the convention to the Casper High School auditorium. But she couldn't fathom why they'd go through the trouble and expense of coming and then leave within an hour. They'd only just opened the doors to the public, and then…. Then, for some reason, the enthusiasm of her colleagues had died.

She had a feeling that that wasn't just because the air conditioning seemed to have kicked in with more ferocity than was necessary for this time of year. Although….

Maddie pulled off her hood and goggles and looked upwards. The large fans visible on the ceiling confirmed her suspicion. There was no air conditioning, or least none in the auditorium. Ghosts were responsible for this, somehow.

It made sense. Ghosts certainly wouldn't want the ghost hunters getting together to exchange ideas on how to better hunt their prey. They might not have emotions as humans did, but they were endowed with a certain degree of cleverness. Granted, that cleverness generally surfaced through their trickery and manipulation of others—that Danny Phantom was a prime example, managing to get most of the people in this town convinced that he was good—but some of the smarter ghosts, the ones that had often managed to evade many of the traps she and Jack set for them, would undoubtedly be able to conspire against them if they'd caught wind of what was going on in time.

She'd find out who was behind this. Somehow, she'd find out. She and Jack had put too much work into this to have a _ghost_ ruin their plans. And ruined plans they were; even without any fellow ghost hunters, she would have expected a few curiosity seekers from the streets of Amity Park to turn up. The Fentons were always willing to share their information, and she would have thought at least one person in town would have been the slightest bit curious about how to protect himself from all the ghosts that plagued their town. But whatever had driven the others out appeared to have kept anyone else from coming in; the only ones left besides her family were Danny's friends, Sam and Tucker.

Beside her, Jack was struggling to get the ghost radar working. It was a portable unit, similar to the one wired into the Assault Vehicle, but which worked for a smaller area. Without a larger power source, they hadn't been able to make it reliable enough to satisfy themselves with the original radius. As it was, however, it was deadly accurate.

The Fenton Finder started beeping immediately, proclaiming a ghost to be nearby. Jack looked up eagerly, but his face fell when he realized in which direction the machine had picked up the ghost. "We still haven't got all the bugs out of it," he said, dismayed. "It's still picking up Danny and his friends."

Maddie glanced at the screen. "Just Danny, from the looks of it." Ever since that lab accident…. She'd feel better if the children actually wore hazmat suits all the time when they were in the lab. It was simple safety protocol, and it might have prevented Danny from picking up so much contamination. It was rather strange that Jazz hadn't picked up as much, but then Danny was the one who was often set to clean up the lab. Jasmine had other chores, and she spent her spare time studying while Danny just hung out with his friends. It was good to see him getting along so well, but it would be nice if he tried harder in school. His grades had slipped significantly over the past year.

Jack frowned, mulling over her words, and then brightened. "Unless we _did_ fix it," he suggested, "and one of them is being overshadowed!"

Maddie sighed. "You go check, Jack." He wouldn't be happy until he was convinced a ghost wasn't inhabiting one of those poor children, and frankly, she wouldn't be, either, though she knew it was unlikely.

There were too many inventions they hadn't managed to fix, and it was all too likely that all the Fenton Finder was picking up was Danny. If only he'd listened to her and at least worn gloves….

"Oh, sweetie," Maddie whispered, "we'll find a way to get you better, I promise." But she knew how hard it would be to keep that promise. Danny never complained about anything, never displayed anything other than annoyance and, on occasion, nervousness, when their inventions centred on him; she supposed the latter was because he feared they might one time shoot him on impulse, without checking that they were aiming at a ghost, but they'd never do that to their son. But she didn't know if that was the reason for his fear or not, though she had no idea what else it might be, because he never confided in her anymore, either.

He didn't confide in any of them.

As far as she could tell, only his friends knew whatever secrets he might have.

But she could worry about that later. Right now, they needed to find the ghost behind this sabotage. She wished she knew who it was, but wishing, of course, never got anyone anywhere.

Maddie pulled the hood of her blue hazmat suit back up and fitted the goggles into place. Doing was what got things done, not wishing. And right now, she had a job to do. She needed to find the ghost, or ghosts, that had caused this, and she needed to put things right and send those ghosts back to the Ghost Zone where they belonged.

* * *

><p>"<em>Ghost directly ahead. You would have to be some sort of moron to not notice the ghost directly ahead," <em>the Fenton Finder proclaimed.

Jack frowned and looked up at Danny, who was smiling nervously. "Oh, sorry, Danny-boy. I thought we had it fixed this time."

"No problem, Dad," Danny said, relaxing his grip on the thermos. "Look, uh, maybe we should just go outside and see if we can find the ghost who did this."

Jack shook his head. "That's what they _want_ us to do, and Jack Fenton's not going to do what a ghost wants him to do. We're staying right here." He wasn't going to be manipulated by ghosts. He had a stronger will than any of those other ghost hunters. Of course, he would have hoped that Danny would have inherited that strong will from him, but obviously, if he was being affected by whatever was affecting all the other ghost hunters, he simply hadn't done enough ghost hunting to _develop_ that stronger will.

Funny that Sam and Tucker weren't showing signs of wanting to leave, but perhaps they hadn't done enough ghost hunting in the first place to be affected. Yes, that had to be it. Whatever ghost was behind this only wanted the ghost hunters out of the building, and Danny's friends weren't ghost hunters.

He should invite them back to the lab. They'd tried to steer clear of it after their first lesson, unless it involved playing video games or looking for Danny or some such thing, but, by golly, they'd been speechless when he'd finished telling them about ghosts that first time. They'd been captivated by what he had to say. It had, quite literally, taken their breath away. He hadn't expected that, actually, but he wasn't going to ignore that sign. Whether they knew it or not, they were destined to take their place among the ranks of ghost hunters.

Besides, they were good friends with Danny, and Danny was a Fenton, and Fentons were ghost hunters. It was practically expected that they learn the ins and outs of the business. Even Jazz had finally given in, and she'd turned out to have quite a talent. He'd tried to get that blue ghost with the Fenton Fisher, but the dratted line had tangled again….

"But, um, if we _found_ the ghost," Danny said, "we might actually be able to beat it."

Sam and Tucker took this as their cue to nod vigorously. "That's right, Mr. F," Tucker added. "We can't catch it if we stay here. It's not going to come to us."

Jack smiled. "That's where you're wrong," he said. Ignoring the astounded '_what?_' from the kids, he continued, "I just finished the prototype this morning." He rummaged in his pocket for a moment and then pulled out a device hardly bigger than the Fenton Finder or the Ghost Gabber.

Danny eyed it warily. "What is it?"

Poor kid. He sounded like he didn't even want to know. Surely he hadn't been on the wrong end of _that_ many of their inventions, had he? Sure, the Booo-merang had centred on him instead of any of the real ghosts, though they had yet to figure out why and fix it, since whatever it was was probably the reason the Fenton Finder kept thinking Danny was a ghost, of all things, but Jazz had probably been covered in ectoplasmic gloop more often than Danny, and she wasn't complaining.

Well, she did keep vowing that she was writing everything down in that memoir of hers, but after Maddie had developed that special shampoo so that the gloop came out of hair more easily, she'd seemed to accept it as the job hazard it was.

It didn't matter. Danny'd see the use for his newest invention right away, anyway, and then he'd look a lot more cheerful. "The Ecto-Entrapper!" Jack exclaimed, grinning widely.

"The ecto-whatta?"

"The Ecto-Entrapper," Jack repeated.

Sam looked at it doubtfully. "It doesn't look like the ghost catcher."

Jack shook his head. "The Fenton Ghost Catcher is completely different," he said. "This little baby here will lure the ghost to us like a fly to honey. It won't be able to help itself. Any ghost within a hundred feet will show its face."

Danny opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and asked, "Then what?"

"Then, when the ghost's held in place by the Ecto-Entrapper, we catch it, and we can tear it apart molecule by molecule!"

Danny cringed. "Yeah, um, about that. Have you tried it?"

"Well, no," Jack admitted, "but there's no time like the present." He moved to press the button to start the Ecto-Entrapper, but Tucker caught his arm.

"Hey, Mr. Fenton, can I see that for a minute? I mean, a hundred feet isn't very big for a ghost. The Fenton Finder's got a bigger scope than that, doesn't it? You should be able to get a wider range."

"That's what Maddie said," Jack reported happily. Maybe Danny's friends even had some natural talent when it came to ghost hunting. "But we need to do some test runs before we find out exactly what she can do." He let Tucker take the prototype anyway, though. Kid was a technogeek; even _he_ realized that. Maybe if he could get Tucker interested in inventing ghost hunting weapons, Danny and Jazz might actually consent to go out as a family again. Maddie was big on that quality time stuff, and, well, he just loved ghost hunting.

"How's it work?" Sam asked, leaning over.

Tucker looked at it for a second. "I think it sends out some sort of pulse or something."

Ah, getting the next generation interested in ghost hunting. That's what this was all about. Jack started to explain his newest invention, saying how it reacted with a ghost's ectoplasm and how it would pull the ghosts towards them like magnets attracting metal. It was sort of like how a Venus fly trap attracted insects, he said, except the device itself acted as an ecto-attractant that drew nearby ectoplasm towards it. It wasn't through sound or smell or anything like that; some of the lesser ghosts, the ones that were hardly anything more than blobs of ectoplasm, wouldn't necessarily react to that. But when he'd first been trying to develop that Ecto-Dejecto to reduce a ghost's powers to the point that it lost all its form, he'd come across a formulation of something that seemed to, well, attract ectoplasm. It had showed more promise of working than the Ecto-Dejecto formulation, so he'd set to work on that first, and now he had something to show for it.

He wasn't really sure how it worked. He just knew that it did.

He didn't need to tell the kids that, though.

Of course, speaking of telling the kids…. When had they snuck off? "Danny?" Jack called. "Sam? Tucker?" No response, and no sign of them. "Danny? Where's the Ecto-Entrapper? Danny?"

Still nothing.

"Jazz!" Jack bellowed. "Have you seen Danny and his friends?"

Jazz, across the room, looked up from her book. "I think they might've gone outside," she called back.

Jack felt a hand on his arm and jumped, but then he heard Maddie's voice. "They'll be fine, Jack."

"They have the Ecto-Entrapper!"

"They aren't going to wreck it, honey," Maddie reminded him.

"But I wanted to try it out," Jack said.

Maddie sighed. "I'll go find them. Here," she added, rummaging in her pocket for a moment, "have a cookie."

Jack grinned. "Oh, Mads, you always know the best way to cheer me up!" He took a bite, savouring the delicious taste as his wife went off in search of the missing invention. "But I still wish I had it so I could be the one to try it out," he added, swallowing the last of the cookie. "Ah, well, Maddie'll get it back for me." He should really start untangling the Fenton Fisher, anyway.

As Jack started towards the various displays of FentonWorks equipment, however, he tripped over something—and not just his own feet. A closer inspection revealed the Ecto-Entrapper. Jack picked it up. The kids shouldn't've left it lying about, but…. Well, he couldn't pretend that he wasn't happy that he got to be the first one to try it out.

Smiling in anticipation of yet another success, Jack Fenton turned on his latest invention.


	4. Chapter 4

"Do you think it'll actually work?" Sam asked, looking up from the Ecto-Entrapper to Danny.

Danny shrugged. "It's one of Dad's inventions. It either works, or it has the complete opposite effect. It'll definitely do _something_. The only thing I can remember them inventing that didn't immediately have some effect was the thermos, which is probably some sort of twist of fate because that's what's most useful to me." When it had started to work, though, thanks to his own ghostly powers somehow doing something to it, he didn't question things. He didn't really understand what he'd done to make them work; he just knew the sort of special touch they needed to work and had made sure he'd treated all of his parents' thermoses accordingly. Besides, his parents hadn't questioned why all their thermoses had started working, either, which was all the better for him.

Still. They'd had to scamper pretty quickly when it had become clear that Jack Fenton was too busy blathering on about ghosts to notice them leaving. Not that they'd actually left or anything. They were still inside; they were just hiding. His parents had brought in a bunch of boxes, too, when carrying in all their weapons, and since the Box Ghost was safely contained in the thermos, the bit of space between the stacks and the wall turned out to be an ideal option.

"I think there's some kind of goo in there," Tucker said, taking the device from Sam and peering through the vents in the back. "How that isn't affecting the circuitry is beyond me."

Sam shrugged. "It's probably supposed to be like that. The goo probably enhances something." She glanced at Danny again. "Do you know anything else about it?"

"Not besides what he told us," Danny admitted. "I know you said to keep an eye on what my parents are doing, but the last thing I remember Dad working on was something to get rid of a ghost's powers."

Tucker and Sam exchanged glances. "Isn't that what the Ecto-Stoppo-Power-ofier does?"

"Well, yeah, but this was supposed to be some sort of stuff that makes a ghost shrivel up or something like that, too. I dunno; he hasn't gotten it right yet. He probably stumbled on this stuff in his experiments. Dad might usually have a one-track mind, but he knows a good thing when he sees it. He would've followed up on this before it got mixed up in all the rest of the samples that didn't work."

"So this probably does work, then," Sam surmised.

"With my luck it does," Danny muttered. "Dad found something that has some effect, at any rate, or he'd still be working on that other stuff."

"Well, knowing your dad, he'll probably keep at it until he gets something like what he wants," Sam said, "so at least you'll know his next project."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed, carefully putting the Ecto-Entrapper down on the floor between them. "Then all you need to do is worry about what your mom's going to invent next."

Danny groaned and buried his head in his hands. "It'll probably be something more damaging than a new cookie recipe."

"Look on the bright side," Tucker said. "The only ghost hunters left at this convention are us and your parents, and you deal with them every day anyway."

"Yeah, well," Danny said, raising his head again, "I'm not sure that's a good thing, either. I mean, yeah, it's great that no one else is here and potentially hunting me, but we still don't know why they left." Tucker opened his mouth again, and Danny hurriedly added, "I know it looks like Desiree, but I already said, my ghost sense didn't go off."

"Well, maybe Desiree did something that grants people's wishes so she doesn't have to be here," Sam suggested.

Danny shook his head. "If that would've worked, don't you think she would've tried it before this?"

"Well, she's not as thick as Technus," Tucker said, "but…."

Danny shot his friend a look. "There's a very easy way to test that theory, you know." As loudly as he dared, he said, "I wish I knew what was going on here!"

"No, huh?"

"No," Danny confirmed.

"Well, maybe you can't wish for information," Sam reasoned. "Try something else."

"Fine. I wish…I wish…. Oh, I dunno. What's something harmless that I can wish for in case it _is_ Desiree?" Danny peeked out from behind the boxes and scanned the room. "Okay," he said, spotting his sister, "I wish Jazz's hair band was black instead of turquoise."

Tucker and Sam looked out beside him, but nothing had changed.

"Okay, scratch that," Danny said. "It's not wishing."

"Maybe it's something you really want, then," Sam said. "Even if you _don't_ say it aloud."

Tucker snorted. "Man, it's so not that. I think we would've noticed if people just got whatever they wanted without even saying it. It's got to be wishing. You're just not wishing for the right things, Danny. Me, _I_ wish we were all at home playing Doomed—"

Danny blinked.

Sam and Tucker were gone.

"That is so not fair," Danny muttered. At least Sam and Tucker would probably realize what happened and come back, but that wasn't the point. Whoever had set this up clearly hated him. Not that that should surprise him. Half the ghosts in the Ghost Zone hated him. Of course, he hadn't exactly given a lot of them many reasons to like him, but they were the ones who kept attacking Amity Park, not him. He was just trying to protect his town. And sometimes the planet, whenever one of them got it in their heads to try to take over the world….

Well, if any of them were stupid enough to try to attack him now, there were more than enough weapons in here to do some damage and weaken them enough so that they could be sucked into a thermos. He wouldn't even have to go ghost. Hopefully. So, he shouldn't need to worry about them. But despite the clear coordination between wishing and weird stuff happening, he'd been left out of the equation somehow, and he wasn't sure how Desiree had pulled this off. Assuming it was her, of course, but he hadn't run into any _other_ wishing ghosts.

At least he could hide this Ecto-Entrapper thing his dad had—

Or not. It wasn't in front of him anymore, where Tucker had put it. It was gone.

Danny tentatively peeked out from around the boxes again, just in time to see his dad pick up his latest invention. He scrambled out of his hiding place and started off, calling out, "Dad! Wait!"

He was too late. Danny skidded to a stop, watching in horror as Jack Fenton pushed the button to turn on the Ecto-Entrapper.

* * *

><p>Jazz looked up from her book when she heard Danny's cry. Unfortunately for Danny, Jack hadn't heard him. Fortunately for Danny…. Well, she couldn't see any ill effects from here. Setting the book aside, Jazz walked over and put a hand on her brother's shoulder.<p>

He cracked open one eye and looked at her. "Uh, hi, Jazz." He opened the other eye and glanced at their father, who was looking around expectantly. When nothing happened, Danny relaxed and shook Jazz's hand off. Then he sneezed, and she rolled her eyes because he didn't have the decency to cover his mouth, but otherwise ignored that. It was chilly in here, and she had other questions for him.

"Where are Sam and Tucker?" Jazz asked. She'd seen the three of them sneak behind the boxes, and she would've thought that Danny's friends would've tried to stop Jack from turning on the Ecto-Entrapper in case there _was_ any effect on him.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and shot another nervous glance at Jack. "They, um, had to go."

"Danny…." Jazz crossed her arms and fixed her brother with a look.

"Okay, okay, fine, we'll talk." Danny held up his hands in surrender. "Just…not now."

Jazz glanced over her shoulder and spotted their mother coming towards them, smiling. She remembered her mom had volunteered to check outside for Danny and his friends after she'd told her father she'd seen them go out. Jazz had been watching, though, and Maddie, reasonably thinking that the three couldn't have gone far, had hardly done anything more than stick her head out the door and call for them.

"Oh, there you are, sweetie," Maddie said to Danny as she joined them. "Jazz had thought the three of you had gone outside."

"I just went to see Sam and Tucker off," Danny said quickly. "They had to go, um…. They had to go. They said they'll come back when they can, but, uh, I kind of thought you might want me to stay here to, you know, help with stuff."

"That's very sweet of you, honey," Maddie said, giving her son a hug. "I'm glad you aren't regretting coming."

Judging from the look on Danny's face, he was regretting it a lot. But he hadn't had a real choice, and Jazz knew it as well as he did. She was just surprised that he hadn't made some excuse to slip out after Tucker and Sam.

That was probably why he wanted to talk to her, and she intended to find things out sooner rather than later. The minute their mother had turned to console their disappointed father about the lack of instant success on the part of the invention, she snatched Danny's arm and dragged him away from their parents.

"Jazz!" he squawked, trying to bat her arm away.

She ignored him.

Danny started muttering to himself, but she knew he wouldn't try anything in plain sight of their parents—or within easy range of any of the FentonWorks inventions that could detect a sudden spike in ecto-energy of any sort, meaning he wouldn't dare just go intangible and leave her clutching air. When they were safely hidden in the wings of the stage that occupied the front of the auditorium, well out of earshot, Jazz let Danny go.

"What was that for?" he grumbled, rubbing his arm.

"What's going on, Danny?"

Nothing.

"You said you'd tell me," she chided. "I just want to help, and I can't help you unless you tell me what's going on."

"I don't _know_ what's going on," Danny snapped. "That's the problem." He sighed. "Sorry, Jazz. It's just…. I don't know. Things aren't making any sense."

"We'll figure out what drove the others away."

Danny shook his head. "It's worse than that. Look, Desiree's not here—my ghost sense hasn't gone off since the Box Ghost turned up—but when people make wishes, they come true. Except for me, for some reason. I'm immune."

"So Sam and Tucker got caught on the wrong side of a wish?"

Danny nodded glumly. "Yeah, Tucker wished that we were at home playing Doomed, and the next second, they were gone."

"So not only are your wishes not coming true, but you also can't be affected by other people's wishes," Jazz realized.

"I guess," Danny said, though he sounded like he hadn't figured that one out until she'd pointed it out.

Jazz looked at her little brother for a moment. He looked tired. She wondered what time he'd gotten to bed, but figured it wouldn't do her any good to ask. "Any effects from Dad's Ecto-Entrapper?" she asked quietly.

"I don't think so," Danny said. "I mean, all it's supposed to do—"

"—is draw ghosts to it like moths to a flame and keep them there," Jazz finished. "I know; he told me this morning at breakfast." She bit her lip. "But, Danny, Dad wouldn't have brought it here unless he'd gotten some response in the lab to show that it should work. You know that."

Danny shrugged. "So I just won't go ghost and then we won't have a problem."

"It might not work like that," Jazz insisted.

"How else is it going to work?" Danny returned. "Don't worry, Jazz. I'll be fine. Now, if you'll excuse me," he added, pulling out his cell phone, "I need to talk to Sam and Tuck."

"Be careful," Jazz advised.

Danny glanced up at her. "Jazz, I'm just calling my friends. It's not like anyone's attacking us, and if a ghost turns up, Mom and Dad can handle it. It's fine. _I'm_ fine."

Jazz watched him go, unable to stop worrying. "I hope so, little brother," she whispered. "I hope so."

* * *

><p>It was a moment before Sam realized what had happened, and a moment longer before she realized that Danny wasn't online with her and Tucker. Once she did, however, she lost no time in starting a chat with FryerTuck. <em>We've got to get back to the school! <em>she typed.

_I'll meet you there_. The response came immediately, and Sam hoped it meant that Tucker was thinking along the same lines. Desiree had to be behind this somehow, and they needed to go rescue Danny. Jazz had covered for him lots of times, yes, but when there were only the four Fentons in the entire auditorium, Danny's parents were going to miss him if he just left without giving a good excuse. Or any excuse, rather. Sam had a feeling some of Danny's excuses hadn't been good ones; she'd heard what he'd told Mr. Lancer when he'd needed to run out of class or when he'd come in late.

But she and Tucker would be great excuses, and they might be able to sneak a few more Fenton weapons to boot.

Sam lost no time in logging off the game, but she paused at the top of the stairs. Her parents had seen her go out once already, and she could hear them in the living room, and she'd have to pass by it to get to the front door. And, somehow, a rope out of her bedroom window might be a tad too telltale. The back door was probably the best, then. Out through the kitchen.

Sam crept down the stairs, cringing when she forgot to skip a creaky step, but she made it to the kitchen without drawing the attention of her parents. Unfortunately, it was a bit hard to avoid Grandma Ida, who was now looking at her with a knowing sort of smile on her face. "Forget something, _bubeleh_?" she asked, the smile spreading.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said, jumping on the excuse. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. "My phone. Shouldn't leave home without it, right?" She glanced over her shoulder, but her parents were still conversing about something. Probably the next pink monstrosity of a dress they were going to try to force her into.

"Oh, no, no," Grandma Ida said. "Of course, when I was your age, we didn't have phones. If I needed to talk to my friends, I had to go find them in person. I suggest you do the same, while I sit here reminiscing about the old days and forgetting I ever saw you leave again."

Sam smiled. "Thanks, Grandma," she said, giving her a quick hug. Trust Grandma Ida not to question her. She was the only one in the house who understood her and knew she had some secrets that she had to keep. Maybe wisdom really did come with age. Or maybe Grandma Ida was just cool like that. Either way, Sam was very glad to have an ally in the house.

Her scooter was still at the school, so she decided to leg it. She could take a taxi, true, but Tucker probably wouldn't have the luxury, and she wasn't sure she could distract both of Danny's parents without some backup. At the very least, she could get Tucker to ask about some of the inventions and, while he was stuck listening to the answer, she could pocket a few choice ones. It was always good to have a small backup supply, since the time inevitably came when one of the ghosts they fought managed to blast a weapon to pieces.

When she did finally get to the school again, she waited out front for Tucker. She was, however, also listening intently for any distant sounds of fighting, or screaming, or weapons discharging…. She couldn't hear anything, not beyond the birds and the cars and such in the distance. That was good. Desiree, wherever she was, wasn't causing terror by granting wishes made by unsuspecting townsfolk—at least, not within earshot—and nothing horrible had happened at the school while she and Tucker had been gone.

She was just about to phone Tucker to find out where he was when he came around the corner, panting slightly. "I hate running," he gasped, clutching his side.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You know, with all the ghost fighting we do, you'd think you'd be in better shape. We spend half the time running."

"Just short distances," Tucker shot back, still breathing heavily.

Sam decided not to comment but figured she might as well wait for Tucker to get his breath back. Danny wouldn't exactly find himself in trouble in five more minutes, would he? Well, actually, with Danny's luck, that might very well be the case, but they could take the chance. Help wasn't exactly far away.

"Come on," Sam finally said, grabbing Tucker's arm and dragging him towards the school. "We need to figure things out sooner rather than later, and we need Danny."

When they burst into the auditorium, however, there was no sign of Danny.

For that matter, there was no sign of Jack, Maddie, or Jazz, either. Everything else was there, still in place: all the tables were set up, the FentonWorks booth was stuffed full of Danny's parents' inventions, and the stack of boxes that they'd hidden behind earlier was still resting by the wall near the stage.

"Danny?" Sam called uncertainly.

Tucker had pulled out his phone, but after nearly a minute of listening to it ring, he put it away. "He's not picking up," Tucker said.

"I don't like this," Sam said, rubbing her arms. "There's something definitely wrong here."

"Hey, I thought _I_ was the one who was supposed to state the obvious."

Sam smacked him. "You know what I mean. This isn't normal, Tucker. Even for us."

"Cool it, Sam. There's an easy way to do this," Tucker said. He walked over to the FentonWorks booth, picked up the Fenton Finder, and tossed it to her.

She caught it and turned it on. _"Welcome to the Fenton Finder_. _No ghosts currently detected. Please try elsewhere. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder."_

"Um, er, well," Tucker stuttered when Sam looked up at him, clearly worried, "there's always the Booo-merang, right? Danny said that's how Jazz found him when he was stuck ten years in the future."

"Yeah," Sam agreed quietly. "It's still keyed into his ecto-signature."

"So we're good, then. We just have to follow it. Like the last time we lost Danny." Tucker gave Sam an encouraging grin, found the Booo-merang in the pile of inventions, turned it on, and threw it.

It soared encouragingly around the room, and Sam finally smiled. This was going to work. Well, she knew it had to; the Booo-merang had an ecto-generated power supply that lasted a heck of a lot longer than a battery. Plus, from what she understood from the last time it had been her turn to listen to Jack Fenton blather on about ghosts and his various inventions while the other two took care of whatever problem was at hand, the Booo-merang could draw on traces of residual ectoplasm to recharge itself. And there was a whole lot of residual ectoplasm in Amity Park, so even if the Booo-merang _was_ low, it could easily get its power back up.

The Booo-merang started on its second circle of the room.

"Shouldn't it be going somewhere by now?" Sam asked. "It's passed a couple doors, and it'll usually take those." Or a window, but there weren't any windows in this room.

"Give it time," Tucker said confidently. He already had his PDA out. "If we lose track of it, we'll be able to follow it on this."

Sam leaned over to look at the screen, which showed a rough map of their surroundings—she'd long ago decided she didn't need to know the details of Tucker's technology and how he got all his stuff—and the bright, blinking, moving dot of the Booo-merang. "Hang on," she said, watching the dot on the screen for a moment. "Is it…slowing down?"

There was a clatter behind them as the Booo-merang, losing speed and height, collided with a table. It bounced for a moment, skidding across the floor and finally coming to rest at their feet. Sam looked back at Tucker's PDA. The dot on screen was still blinking, but it was stationary.

She felt her hope crash to the floor.

Tucker picked up the Booo-merang and looked between it and her. "Maybe we can try it again. Just outside this time, so it has a clear path."

"I don't think that'll help," Sam said dully.

"It won't crash into anything there," Tucker pointed out again.

"It shouldn't have crashed into anything here." Sam swallowed. "Danny's in trouble, Tucker."

"He's been in trouble loads of times," Tucker said, clearly trying to comfort her without being too obvious about it. "So we'll just have to go save him like we always do."

"But we don't even know where he is," she said. "And we can't even find him."

"So we'll ask around," Tucker said. "Someone's bound to have seen him. Maybe he went looking for us."

"Then what about the rest of the Fentons?" Sam retorted. "And, anyway, Danny wouldn't've left without telling us."

"Maybe he didn't have a choice," Tucker suggested. Sam glared at him, and he hurriedly added, "I mean, look at us. We ended up back home, didn't we? If any of them made a wish—"

"But Danny didn't end up with us," Sam interrupted. "Ghost Boy wasn't online. He hadn't logged into Doomed, or been logged on, or whatever. Not like us." She stalked over to the FentonWorks booth herself this time, grabbing a couple of Fenton Wrist Rays, Fenton Lipsticks, Fenton Thermoses, ectoguns, and a Wraith Wrangler. She handed half the stuff to Tucker, then pulled the Fenton Phones out of her pocket. She put hers on. "We'll split up," she said. "We'll see if anyone's seen him, or if anyone's seen anything suspicious." She narrowed her eyes. "Whoever was set on getting rid of all the ghost hunters in this town didn't count on us."

"Or Valerie," Tucker said as he fitted the Fenton Phone to his ear. "I passed the Nasty Burger, and she's working the counter."

"Yeah, well," Sam said, frowning a bit at the mention of Valerie's name, "maybe whoever is doing this doesn't know she's the Red Huntress." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We need to find Danny, and we won't have any luck if we don't get a move on."

Tucker nodded and followed Sam out of the auditorium. Once outside, he tossed the Booo-merang again. Sam stopped, turning back to look at him as it whizzed past her. It slowly started spinning around and heading back towards them, back towards the doors of the school, and then it hit the ground. Sam's gaze hardened. "Come on," she said again. "We'd better go."

* * *

><p>AN: Step 1: Isolate the Fenton family. Check. Step 2…. Well, we'll get to that. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who takes the time to review. I really appreciate it.


	5. Chapter 5

"Come _on_, Tucker," Danny growled. "Pick up already, would you?"

Tucker, however, clearly didn't comply, because the phone continued to ring. Danny sighed and hung up, then sent his friends another text message. _Where r u?_ Tucker _had_ to be getting the message. He wouldn't be going anywhere without his precious technology. But he also wouldn't purposely not answer his phone, and neither would Sam (at least, not when he was calling her).

Danny snapped the cell phone shut and slipped it into his pocket. Jazz would say that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, and there probably was. He was always getting into trouble because he was impatient. But he was still edgy because, despite what he'd told his worrywart of a sister, he wasn't sure everything was going to be fine.

So far, things had been too weird to be just fine. The only real good luck he'd had that hadn't had strings attached was the fact that his dad's invention didn't do what it was supposed to.

At least…. At least, he didn't _think_ it did. Danny glanced towards the boxes. He'd left the thermos behind there, and he knew it was empty except for the Box Ghost. It wouldn't take much to get him back in there. And it would, at the very least, let him know if he had anything to worry about in the future if he ever did have to go ghost and his parents turned up. Besides, if a ghost _didn't_ turn up, his dad might keep working on it, and if he somehow made it better, Danny might be in trouble.

More trouble than he was in now, at any rate.

His decision made, Danny grabbed the thermos before rejoining his parents. Jazz had returned to her book, curled up on one of those uncomfortable wooden chairs that were set out against one wall. He didn't know what she was reading, but he figured she'd chosen her position to keep an eye on him; she had a pretty clear view of nearly everything in the room.

"How long does that Ecto-Entrapper thing last, Dad?" Danny asked. "I mean, when does it stop attracting ghosts?"

"I'm not sure, son," Jack admitted. "But you can bet it'll draw the ghosts out wherever they're hiding!"

"Within a hundred feet, judging by the preliminary tests," Maddie added. "Here, sweetie, I can take that." She reached for the thermos.

Perfect. Danny handed it to her, muttering his thanks, and accidentally-on-purpose hit the release button. "Oops," he said, as the cap flew off and the Box Ghost burst out in front of them. He bent down to grab the cap, stifling a shiver as his ghost sense went off.

"Ah ha!" the Box Ghost cried. "You cannot hold me in a _cylindrical_ container! I am the—" Here he broke off, his eye catching sight of the boxes by the corner. "I am the Box Ghost!" he continued, sending a blast of power towards said boxes. "Master of all things cardboard and square! Beware!" The boxes in the question glowed blue and shakily started to rise.

Danny's parents had, of course, taken immediate action. Even as the Box Ghost had been talking, Maddie had exchanged the thermos for an ectogun and her double-ended staff. Jack took hold of the Fenton Bazooka and pressed the button of the Ecto-Entrapper again for good measure. Both were telling the Box Ghost in no uncertain terms what they thought of him.

Danny picked up the thermos but didn't activate it yet. He wanted to see whether the Ecto-Entrapper would have any effect—providing it _would_ have one on the Box Ghost, who would probably stick around anyway, just because of the boxes. But Danny just watched anyway, idly thinking that he could've had the Box Ghost in the thermos by now, or at least exchanged some wittier banter than they were at the moment.

The Ecto-Entrapper didn't seem to do much, but Danny had fought the Box Ghost often enough to notice that it had had an effect. He wasn't moving as quickly as usual, and he seemed to have more trouble keeping things straight. He was slower. Even the boxes he'd controlled, which normally would have been tossed at them by now, were still hovering in place above the corner. The Box Ghost himself was still five feet in front of him, doing no more than trying to dodge the ectoblasts sent at him by Maddie with the ectogun. Well, technically, he was dodging everything sent at him by Jack, too, but Danny knew he would've been better off not trying to. He was more likely to get hit that way. Not that he'd tell the Box Ghost that if he couldn't even figure it out himself.

Danny sneezed. "Great," he muttered. "I'm getting a cold on top of this. That's what I get for not getting enough sleep." Sniffling a bit, he activated the thermos and sucked the Box Ghost inside just as another one of his mother's shots hit home. The boxes in the corner fell back to the ground with a thump, and Danny screwed the cap back on the thermos.

"You got him, Danny-boy!" Jack cried, clapping him so hard on the back that Danny nearly dropped the thermos. The way things were going today, it would land on the release button and they'd have to deal with the Box Ghost all over again. It wasn't hard; it was just annoying, and rather pointless. The only thing Danny could give him credit for was the way he kept managing to get _out _of the Ghost Zone, which was a lot more often than even Skulker managed, and the only ones who could top the Box Ghost were probably Cujo and Wulf, and they could either dig or slash their way out, so they didn't really count.

Besides, Danny had more important things to worry about than the Box Ghost. His parents didn't exactly know about his nightly activities, and he wanted to keep it that way. "Yeah, I think your invention does work, Dad. He hardly moved."

"And you got him," Jack said. "That's my boy! Taking after his old man."

Maddie laughed. "We'll have to plan a family outing, and you and Jazz can learn some more of the finer points of ghost hunting from us."

Danny cringed. "Uh, yeah. Sounds great, Mom." He passed the thermos off to her again and went to sit by Jazz.

She raised her eyes over the cover of her book and closed it when he sat down, her finger marking her place. "I've got to hand it to you, little brother," she said. "That was pretty clever of you."

"Yeah, except for the fact that Mom and Dad want to take us ghost hunting now, so we can get more practice."

Jazz smiled. "I'll see if I can talk them out of it. I talked them into taking a family trip when that cowboy ghost kid was pestering you, didn't I? What was his name again?"

"Cowboy—?" Danny blinked, then realization dawned. "Oh, yeah. Youngblood." He gave her a weak smile and quietly added, "I forgot you already knew my secret by then."

"Danny, I saw you transform a few months after the accident," Jazz reminded him. "I just didn't tell you until I had to, because I wanted to wait until you wanted to tell me. To trust me." She was quiet for a moment before continuing with, "You do trust me, don't you?"

"Sure I do," Danny said. "You cover for me, and you haven't told anyone, and—"

"I know," Jazz interrupted, "and I know you'll probably always trust Sam and Tucker more, at least now, but I meant it when I said you could tell me anything, Danny. You're my little brother, and I love you, and I think you're doing a wonderful thing defending our town, but I also know you're under a lot of stress, and—"

"And that's slipping into 'Psychologist Jazz' talking," Danny cut in, "and I don't need her right now." He sneezed again.

Jazz frowned at him and dug a neatly-folded tissue out of her pocket. She handed it to him. "No, right now you need someone to remind you to cover your mouth. I don't want to get sick."

Great. She was back to mothering him again. That had not taken long at all. "There's probably something going around. You'll get it soon enough anyway."

"You need to get more sleep, Danny," Jazz said. "You're almost dead on your feet, and that's only going to weaken your immune system. You have to—"

"Jazz," Danny said, jumping in before she could get any further, "I can't get a hold of Sam or Tucker."

Jazz stopped mid-sentence. "Neither of them?" she asked.

Danny shook his head. "They aren't answering. I've phoned them both a bunch of times, and they aren't answering their texts."

Jazz's worry faded. "So they're not by their phones, that's all," she said. "Being without technology isn't a crime, Danny."

"It is for Tucker," he said. Jazz clearly did not grasp the seriousness of the situation.

"Well, you have other friends, don't you? Try getting a hold of them."

Danny looked at her blankly.

Jazz sighed. "Like Valerie, and, oh, I don't know; I can't keep track of all your friends."

"All my friends?" Danny repeated. "This from the sister who once said I barely had _any_ friends, besides Sam and Tucker?" He didn't bother adding that she was right. After Sam and Tucker, Valerie probably _was_ his closest friend—which was rather disconcerting, since she really had it out for Danny Phantom.

"Acquaintances, then," Jazz amended, "but I had thought you thought of Valerie as more than an acquaintance."

"Yeah, when she's not trying to destroy my ghost half," Danny muttered. But he knew Jazz wouldn't give up, so he tried Valerie's number.

No answer.

He tried Sam and Tucker again for good measure, but each time, the phone just kept ringing.

"Don't any of them have answering services?" Jazz asked. "I would've thought something would have cut in by now."

"Yeah, they do, but nothing's cutting in." Danny hung up the phone again and tucked it away. "I don't get it, Jazz."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Jazz said, but Danny could see that she didn't believe that. Just like he had in their last conversation—which had been, what, ten, fifteen minutes ago?—she was just saying what he wanted to hear, to make him feel better.

"Yeah. Nothing. Because it's _always_ nothing whenever it looks like something bad is going to happen."

"Mom and Dad are going to be here all day," Jazz said, evidently deciding against commenting on his tone, "just in case anyone else shows up, but I'm sure we can convince them to let you go home to rest."

Danny raised an eyebrow, looking doubtful.

"Then you can go look for Sam and Tucker." Danny opened his mouth, but Jazz added, "I'll stay here in case they come back and tell them where you are."

"Fine." It wasn't like he had any better ideas.

"You're welcome, Danny," Jazz said pointedly as she stood up. He rolled his eyes but got to his feet as well and followed her. Maybe if he kept yawning and sneezing, his parents would be more likely to agree. The worst that could happen was his mother taking him home and insisting she try to treat him, but he was pretty sure this was a normal cold coming on and not some weird ecto-induced ghost disease. He hadn't heard of any ghost colds, at least.

Not that that stood for much, but Jazz was probably right. He needed more sleep. He was pretty sure no one functioned well on less than five hours of sleep every night. It was actually kind of hard to remember the last time he'd gotten five hours of sleep at night. He'd gotten five hours in school, he was pretty sure, but at night? It was like the ghosts purposely came out then, just to be cliché and to make sure he was still barely maintaining a C average. It was a wonder he wasn't failing more than math and gym. Heck, it was a wonder he wasn't failing English, given the number of times he'd cut Lancer's class….

But still. As nice as sleep sounded, he probably wasn't going to be getting any anytime soon because, as per usual, something bad was happening, and someone, somehow, had it out for him. He just wished he hadn't been separated from Sam and Tucker. It was somehow a lot easier to face everything down when he knew they were backing him up. At least Jazz was right: he could still count on her. And, while safely in his human form, Mom and Dad would do what they thought was best for him, too.

So maybe, just this once, things weren't as bad as they looked after all.

* * *

><p>Tucker, like Sam and Danny, kept a spare bag in his locker to use as a backpack. It was a survival kit of sorts—except not for surviving in the wilderness or the halls of Casper High. It held a small assortment of ghost hunting equipment (or, in Danny's case, a spare thermos) and, more importantly at the moment, it was in a bag. While Sam might be perfectly content to lug all of this around town in plain sight, he was trying not to get any lower on the social ladder. Of course, there wasn't much lower to go, but he had a reputation to keep.<p>

With a bit of effort, Tucker managed to pick the lock on the door separating the auditorium from the wing down which his locker was found. It was a skill Sam had figured the two of them should learn, in case Danny ever got into trouble and needed their help when they were locked out of whichever building the ghosts had taken the fight into. He wasn't exactly sure how Sam had learned it in the first place, but there were some things it just didn't pay to ask about.

When Tucker finally did leave the school, bag slung over his shoulder and stuffed full of various ghost hunting equipment and what he'd deemed essential technology, he stopped in front of the Booo-merang again. He didn't pick it up. He just looked at it. It was the first time it had failed them, and he knew why it had unnerved Sam. It unnerved him, too. If the Booo-merang could track down Danny ten years into the future, why couldn't it find him now?

"Don't worry, buddy," Tucker said. "We'll find you." Then, squaring his shoulders, he started off. Sam was right; he needed to start looking if he expected to find anything.

Tucker started at the Nasty Burger. When he got up in front of Valerie, she asked, "You want the usual, I'm assuming?"

Tucker shook his head. He didn't normally turn down food—well, meat, anyway—for any reason, but he was worried. And he could run faster when he wasn't stuffed full. "Have you seen Danny?" he asked.

"Danny?" Valerie repeated. "Isn't he at the ghost hunters' convention his parents are hosting?"

"They're not there," Tucker said.

"Not there? It's supposed to be open until five. Why aren't they there?"

"I don't know."

Valerie frowned. "Where's Sam?"

"She's out looking, too," Tucker admitted. Then, making a choice, he added, "Something weird happened this morning. All the other ghost hunters who turned up left, so it was just the Fentons, and then they disappeared."

Valerie looked shocked by this news. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said, "Did you try calling him?"

"He's not answering," Tucker said.

"Oh, man," Valerie said, "I want to help you guys, but if I leave my shift early, I'll lose my job." She bit her lip. "You wait for me here for a bit, okay, Tucker? I'm going to see if I can get someone to cover for me."

Tucker nodded and slipped into a seat at one of the empty tables. It wasn't too busy here now; it was still a bit too early for lunch, and most of the teenagers that normally occupied the place had yet to arrive. So when he heard footsteps coming up to him, he rightly assumed it was Valerie. She had her bag slung over her shoulder, the brim of her visor peeking out of the top.

"You can go?" Tucker asked, surprised.

Valerie nodded. "Stan said he'll take my shift, since it's not too busy, but I'll have to do double time next week when I'm better."

"When you're better?" Tucker repeated.

"Told him I was sick," Valerie said dismissively. She grabbed his arm and dragged him outside. "Okay," she said, "what do you know?"

He couldn't tell her everything. That much was obvious. She didn't know that the Booo-merang picked up Danny, for instance, and she definitely had no clue why it would do that anyway, and he didn't feel like making up explanations. He hadn't expected her to offer to help him, anyway. He'd just wanted to know if she'd noticed anything. "Not much more than what I already told you." He shrugged. "Sam and I figure there's a ghost behind it. We're not sure who, but we think it might be the one that grants wishes."

"Desiree," Valerie breathed. Trust her to know the names of the ghosts she hunted. "But who would wish the Fentons away? I mean, Danny's Dad's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but their family's the one with the ghost shield that helped saved the town when we got sucked into the Ghost Zone. As much damage as they do, we'd probably be in a worse spot without them."

They'd be in a worse spot without Danny Phantom, too, but Tucker didn't think he'd ever hear Valerie admit to that one. "You still have all your ghost hunting equipment, right?" Tucker asked, forgetting himself for a minute.

Valerie stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Oh. Right. She didn't know he knew. Great. "Uh, um, I mean, uh…." Tucker grabbed an ectogun from the bag and shoved it at her. "I said, you'll need some ghost hunting equipment, right?"

Valerie narrowed her eyes but nodded. "Yeah," she said, taking the weapon. She looked it over. "Point and shoot, right?"

"Right," Tucker said, relieved that Valerie wasn't going to start pressing him. That had been close. Maybe she did actually think she'd misheard him. "Look, I know it's not much to go on, but maybe…."

"I get it," Valerie said. "If we're going to find Danny, we need to find out what happened to him and his family. And if there's a ghost behind this, then we're going to kick some ghost butt, right?"

"If we can," Tucker agreed, remembering that Valerie didn't know how practiced he and Sam were. "You've still got my number?" he asked. She should, if only from the brief time they'd been dating. Or from the time she and Danny had been dating.

"I've got it right here," Valerie said, holding up her own phone. She didn't bother asking if Tucker still had her number, and he figured she probably knew he did. He still had a list of all the numbers of the girls in school from the time Danny had been chosen as judge of that beauty pageant. True, it had been rigged, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Something good had to come out of all the ghost hunting they did.

"Call me if you find anything, then. I'm going to keep looking."

"Okay." Valerie bit her lip, then said, "Good luck, Tucker."

"Yeah. Thanks. Same to you." Tucker headed off again, but he found his feet carrying him back to the school. As he'd told Valerie, they figured that whoever had pulled this off had been a ghost, and because of the wishing, they suspected Desiree. But usually the other ghosts knew when one of them was trying to take over Amity Park or capture Danny or whatever else. Sometimes they worked together; sometimes they just let whoever was trying their luck have a go. But maybe, instead of searching, they should just ask.

The Box Ghost might not know anything, and he might not give them answers if he did, but Tucker was willing to try anything at this point.

Grabbing the Booo-merang on his way back inside the auditorium, Tucker found the thermos where Danny had left it behind the boxes stacked in one corner. He briefly thought about moving somewhere else, since the boxes would distract the Box Ghost, but at least the boxes would mean he'd stay put.

Tucker opened the thermos and pressed the release button, waiting for the familiar blue ghost to show his face.

Nothing happened.

Tucker shook the thermos. "Come on, I know you're in there," he said. "You _always_ come out as soon as you can. What's the hold up?" He gave the thermos another vigorous shake. "There're boxes out here," he added, wondering if he could tempt the Box Ghost from the thermos.

But why the Box Ghost would _stay_ in the thermos was beyond him. The ghosts didn't exactly like it in there. It was cramped quarters at the best of times.

Finally, however, Tucker heard a distant laugh and the Box Ghost made his appearance. "Beware!" he cried. "I am the Box Ghost! I—"

"Will be sucked back inside here unless you answer some questions," Tucker interrupted, shaking the thermos threateningly. He had it capped again, but that didn't mean he wasn't ready to use it.

The Box Ghost, who had been holding his hands over his head in what he clearly thought was a menacing manner, dropped them back to his sides and blinked at Tucker. "You're not the halfa," he said, as if he'd only just realized that.

"You saw Danny?" Tucker asked eagerly.

"I am not here to answer your questions!" the Box Ghost boomed. "I am—ouch!"

Tucker had out the Fenton Lipstick and had sent off a quick shot at the Box Ghost. "Where's Danny?" he asked. "You were expecting to see Danny, right? So where is he?"

The Box Ghost looked around again and slowly started drifting towards the boxes piled in the corner. Tucker followed, one hand on the lipstick and one on the thermos. "He is in the other place," the Box Ghost finally answered. "I am not going back there, for I am the Box Ghost, and I am…."

Tucker ignored the Box Ghost as he continued ranting, trying to figure out what he meant. The other place? The only other place Tucker knew about was the Ghost Zone, but the ghosts usually called it the Ghost Zone. As for not going back there, well, none of them ever wanted to go back, but they always did, so that wasn't anything unusual.

"Who took him there?" Tucker asked.

The Box Ghost, who had stopped ranting and instead been caressing the boxes, looked up at him.

"Was it Desiree?" Tucker pressed. When he still didn't receive an answer, he held up the lipstick again and looked pointedly at the Box Ghost. The boxes glowed brightly, and Tucker added, "Throw them at me and I'll turn 'em to ashes."

The threat seemed to work, even though Tucker wasn't sure if the lipstick—or anything else that he had with him—would actually do that. "The wishing ghost," the Box Ghost finally answered, "is not in control. She would not have held me there."

"So it's _not_ Desiree?"

But the Box Ghost, instead of answering, just flew out of the room, the boxes following behind him. Tucker sighed. He'd figured the Box Ghost wouldn't stick around forever, but it would've been nice if he'd answered just one more question. Or been clearer with what he _had_ answered. The Ghost Zone was a huge place. It was going to take them _forever_ to find Danny and the rest of the Fentons.

Still, they at least they had a place to start now. With Valerie on the lookout for ghosts in Amity Park, he and Sam could head off in the Spectre Speeder. Valerie had enough equipment and a thermos or two herself, so she could keep things in order here. Plus, she had the guts to go up against whoever it was, since the Box Ghost didn't seem to think it was Desiree, and she probably had a bit more skill than some of the ghosts gave her credit for. She'd be able to handle things until they got back.

Tucker put the now-empty thermos on the table with the rest of the ghost hunting equipment and got in touch with Sam via the Fenton Phones, telling her what he'd found out. She didn't have anything to report—no sign of ghost activity or of the Fentons—and agreed to meet him at FentonWorks. The sooner they set out, she said, the sooner they'd find Danny.

All Tucker could do was hope that the Box Ghost had been telling the truth and that Danny really _was_ in the Ghost Zone.

* * *

><p>AN: So, Sam and Tucker are working with Valerie and it looks like Tucker finally got a few answers for all his trouble, even if he isn't entirely sure what to make of those answers. And the Fentons still have no idea precisely how bad things are, but we'll get to that. Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Happy New Year, and a heartfelt thank you to everyone who takes the time to review.

* * *

><p>To Danny's delight, Jazz managed to convince their parents that he should go home and get some rest. He hadn't really been listening as she'd cited various studies and talked about the importance of health to his wellbeing and how it impacted his school life, which would in turn impact the rest of his life, and so on and so forth. It sounded, to him, like the usual sort of stuff she went on about. Whatever it was, it worked, and she was now charged with taking him home.<p>

"We better not take the Assault Vehicle," Jazz said, "if you're up for the walk, because from what you're saying, Mom and Dad might need it."

"I can fly us," Danny suggested.

Jazz firmly shook her head. "I don't want you exerting yourself when you're sick. It'll just take longer for you to get better."

"I'm not that bad," Danny said. But he sneezed again, and Jazz frowned.

"You're getting worse," she said as he sneezed a second time. But then she gasped and pointed at his feet. "Danny!" she hissed. "What are you doing?"

Danny looked down. Instead of his usual red sneakers, he could see the silver boots he wore in his ghost form. "Uh…."

"Don't play games, all right?" Jazz said. "This is serious."

It was serious. It didn't take Danny very long to figure that out. Try as he might, he couldn't change back. "Um, I'll just stick with it for now," Danny said.

Jazz shook her head. "No. You need to be more careful, Danny."

He didn't really want to tell her he _couldn't_ change back even when he wanted to. He was strongly reminded of the time he'd been hit with the Fenton Crammer by Jack while in his ghost form. It had not only shrunk him (and Skulker and Dash and who knew what else it had hit) so small that a mouse was more comparable in size to a house, but it had also shorted out his ghost powers. He'd gone through a number of what Dash had called 'costume changes' as he was slowly reverting back to his human form. Fortunately, Dash was the stereotypical jock and he hadn't been smart enough to connect the dots and realize that Phantom was becoming Fenton, and he'd gotten Dash to reverse the Fenton Crammer and restore him in size and power before he'd clued in, but it had been close.

But then, he'd been changing back to a human because he'd been losing energy. He knew that that was what happened if he used too much energy in his ghost form. He couldn't hold on to that lightweight, cold feeling that came with being a ghost. It happened practically every time he used his Ghostly Wail if he wasn't careful. He nearly always ended up as an exhausted human.

However, he had absolutely no experience when it came to changing the _other_ way and not being able to stop it.

"Cool it, Jazz," Danny finally said. "I can run faster this way." That was an absolute lie, or at least, he didn't think it was the truth, but he didn't really want to tell his sister the truth quite yet. She couldn't do anything to help, anyway. "Sam's place is probably closer," he said.

Jazz crossed her arms and frowned but didn't argue. "Lead on," was all she said.

The walk to Sam's was quiet. Admittedly, it wasn't usually overly noisy, but this was quieter than usual. It was kind of weird. Danny glanced at Jazz, trying to see if she'd noticed it, too. From the way she was looking around, he guessed she had.

Judging by her next comment, though, she wasn't bothered by it. "This is kind of peaceful, you know," she said. "I never noticed how quiet it can get during the day out here."

"That's because you spend all your free time in the library," Danny said.

"It's a different sort of quiet," Jazz said. "I mean, I love hanging out in the book stacks, but it can get kind of lonely. But this is nice."

Personally, Danny thought it was a bit creepy. He was pretty sure it wasn't normal, but then again, he was probably a bit more paranoid than Jazz at the moment. So he just agreed, hoping to keep her distracted, and wondered what excuse Sam was going to give him when they finally got there. Providing she was there and not at Tucker's….

When they did finally get to Sam's, Danny knocked on the door. He'd been scolded enough times for just bursting in, and he didn't really want to give Sam's parents an excuse to put a restraining order on him again. But when he didn't get an answer, he decided to risk it, and dragged Jazz around to the back. Even if it was locked, he knew where the key was. But someone should be home, maybe Sam's grandmother if not her or her parents.

"Why not just try the doorbell?" Jazz asked as Danny grabbed the key.

"Why not just phase in?" Danny returned.

"Because _I'm_ here," Jazz pointed out. "And, anyway, it would be rude."

"It can't be rude if they're not home."

"No, then it's just illegal. Danny, Sam's probably at Tucker's."

Danny unlocked the door and looked back at Jazz. "Okay," he agreed. "Maybe she is. Maybe I'm just overreacting. But we never saw anyone on the way over here, Jazz. No one. I know you spend most of your time with your nose in a book, but that's not normal. None of this is. Don't you get it? Something's wrong."

Jazz sighed. "Yes," she said softly, "I know. I just…. I didn't want to say it out loud. I didn't want to be right. I was hoping that whatever had happened earlier was an isolated incident."

Danny didn't say anything. Jazz probably knew what he was thinking, anyway. She'd gotten even better at reading him since she'd discovered his secret. It was annoying sometimes, but it was good when he didn't want to talk about something. Jazz understood what was going on those times. Usually, at least. She understood better than his parents, anyway.

Sam's house was empty. Everything was in place, but no one was home. By the time the quick search had been over, Jazz was back to being worried. Well, back to being openly worried, at any rate. Danny knew she'd never stopped worrying. She was his sister; she worried about him and anything that involved him that looked remotely dangerous, and while this might not be dangerous, it involved him and her and their parents, or possibly everyone else in Amity Park except for them, and something definitely wasn't right somewhere. Jazz couldn't hold a mask forever. She didn't have enough practice.

"Let's try Tucker's," Jazz said quietly, ushering Danny out of the Manson household. "We might get lucky."

Danny had his doubts but didn't feel like arguing. He wasn't used to things playing out like this. Whenever he went up against someone, they had the decency to show their face. He always knew who he was fighting. He had some idea of how powerful they were. He always found a way to defeat them, to play on his strengths and their weaknesses.

This was…hard.

How was he supposed to defeat someone when he wasn't even properly sure who he was fighting?

* * *

><p>Valerie Gray wasn't having much luck tracking down ghosts. She'd found the Box Ghost and blasted him a few times to work off some of her frustration but hadn't bothered to suck him into a thermos. He never did much damage, except for that one time he'd opened Pandora's Box, but from what she'd gathered, he wasn't going to try anything like that again any time soon. She wasn't one for letting ghosts go, but he wasn't much of a catch. Besides, if she left him, that Phantom kid might show up. He'd stolen one of the Fenton Thermoses from Danny's parents and had taken to attacking any ghosts that showed up in defence of what he thought was his territory, causing who knew how much damage to the town in the meantime, so he'd come after the Box Ghost sooner or later, and then she could go after him.<p>

She was cutting across the park when her ghost proximity alarm went off for a second time. Since the Box Ghost had been scuttling off in the other direction, she doubted it was him. And, judging by where she was, with the fountain up ahead, Tucker might very well be right. Desiree might just be behind this.

Valerie activated her suit and primed a blaster as she watched some poor sod toss a coin into the fountain. She couldn't hear his wish, but she could see his lips move, and she didn't miss the appearance of the ghost, either. It was Desiree, sure enough, going through her usual wish-granting speech. She'd have to ask the Fentons to know for sure, and she probably wasn't ever going to be able to do that without her dad knowing what she was up to, but she was pretty sure that ghosts had certain routines they had to stick to. It seemed true enough for the ones that were probably once human, if not for the ones that were just bits of ectoplasm.

Well, _all_ ghosts were ectoplasm, plain and simple. Just because some, like that ghost boy, seemed to have an imprint of their former lives left, it didn't mean they were any better than the rest of the ghosts. Heck, she could probably argue that Phantom's kind was worse if she had to. Shouldn't be hard, given the amount of trouble he'd caused….

But Danny Phantom was nowhere to be seen, and Desiree certainly was—along with what looked like it could be a million bucks in pennies. She couldn't see the sucker who'd wished for the money anymore, but she had the ghost in her crosshairs, and she fired.

Her aim was true, and she caught the ghost right where her heart should've been, if she'd ever even had one. After a brief exchange of fire, she pulled out her own thermos. Questioning could come later, once she had the ghost contained.

The thermos was blasted out of her hands.

Okay, maybe questioning would come now. Along with some bigger weaponry. And maybe her backup thermos. "Give it up, ghost, or I'll blast you to smithereens." The weapon currently deployed had always made that Phantom kid look for cover, and she was pretty sure she'd seen him taking on this ghost before and winning, so she shouldn't have much trouble.

Then again, when she was up against a ghost that could make anything nearby go after her, maybe it was best just to get straight to the point. Valerie brought her jet sled up and out of reach of the tree branches that, under Desiree's influence, had tried to grab her, and she couldn't help but wonder what the heck could've possibly made the idiot buried under the pennies wish for help from a few animated trees. She sent a few blasts at them, severing the more dangerous limbs, and turned her attention back to what Desiree was saying. She normally didn't ignore what the ghosts were saying—repetitive and predictable as it usually was, there was always a chance one of them would slip in something interesting—but she didn't really have her head in the game yet. And, frankly, she was lucky she hadn't lost it yet because of that.

Of course, she hadn't ever seen the ghosts try to actually _kill_ anyone. Enslave them, overshadow them, make their lives miserable or just plain old frighten them, yes, but kill? Not really. Not actively. Not yet.

The ghost attacks had meant plenty of injuries, yes. But so far, no one had died. Valerie wasn't sure why. Luck, or skill, or just the types of ghosts that they got, or something else entirely, but she wasn't going to risk it. She wasn't going to take it for granted, or count on it, or anything stupid like that. She knew better than that. She wasn't one to underestimate her opponents.

"What have you done to the Fentons?" Valerie yelled, interrupting the ghost as she sent another blast at her.

Desiree dodged and returned the fire with one of her typical ghostly pink ectoblasts. "I don't know why you're so upset," she said, laughing a bit. Valerie didn't see the humour in the situation, but the ghost's next words chilled her: "You made the wish."

"I never made any such wish, _ghost_," she bit off. "And I don't know anyone in this town who hates that entire family enough to wish for them all to disappear." The Fentons weren't the greatest ghost hunters, but they were ghost hunters, and no one was stupid enough to wish away any protection they might offer.

"Perhaps they don't," Desiree conceded, "but a wish is a wish, and as you have wished it, so it has come to be."

"I didn't make that wish!" Valerie retorted, but her blasts missed again, instead scattering the piles of pennies. Crud. Her anger was starting to influence her aim. She took a few deep breaths, but Desiree didn't use the time to retaliate. She just watched, grinning. Valerie scowled. "I didn't make that wish, and you know it."

"You wished that Danny Phantom would be caught in a situation where he would get his due, did you not? You wished for him to show his true colours, his real self. You—"

"Okay, so I wished that Phantom would get what's coming to him," Valerie snapped, "but that has nothing to do with the Fentons."

Another laugh from the wishing ghost. Valerie ground her teeth but waited for the response. "It has everything to do with the Fentons."

"If you'd needed a ghost hunter, you could've used _me_," Valerie said. "Besides, Danny and Jazz don't even _hunt_ ghosts with their parents, not unless they're forced into it." Valerie realized her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She'd shown how much she'd cared, she'd shown her enemy a weakness to exploit, and she hadn't blasted that stupid ghost while she'd had the chance.

But Desiree, for some reason, didn't cut and run. She just kept laughing. "The magic has to run its course," she finally said. "I can't stop it now."

Valerie growled and found her spare thermos, unscrewing it. "Well, you can't stop this either, ghost!" She trained its beam on Desiree and grinned. "I _wish_," she said clearly, "that I had caught you in this thermos." Powerful as that stupid ghost was, she wouldn't be able to resist the thermos's pull if she had to let herself get sucked into it. She should've thought of this earlier.

"What?" The wish clearly caught Desiree by surprise, but for some reason, she also looked exasperated, as if someone had tried that one on her before and she'd been hoping no one else would figure it out. "N—"

Valerie blinked. Desiree was gone, and Valerie was pretty sure she wasn't in the thermos. Carefully, she capped it and checked its status. Sure enough, it still read EMPTY.

First the Fentons disappeared, then Desiree. That had to be weird. Desiree might have twisted her wish to get rid of her enemies by pitting Phantom against the Fentons somewhere, but it wasn't like anyone would've been able to make a long-distance wish to get rid of her. Desiree granted every wish she heard, the key word being _heard_. If Desiree had been granting any wishes, it would've had to've been Valerie's.

But instead of granting it and ending up inside the thermos, she'd just up and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Unless the thermos was faulty and she'd somehow managed to pull some act where she'd gotten herself in it and out of it again before Valerie had realized what had happened. Maybe then…. Well, Valerie wasn't sure what it meant. But she was pretty sure the thermos wasn't faulty. Vlad Masters supplied her with her equipment. He might've given up something to become mayor of Amity Park, but he was still a billionaire and owner of who knew how many companies. Her ghost hunting was important to him, for some reason. He probably made sure all her equipment worked before passing it on to her.

Maybe she ought to go see him. Vlad was a friend of the Fenton family, even if Danny was sour about him and made no effort to hide that, from him or anyone else. He might not have heard about their disappearance, and he'd want to know. He might be able to help. Money meant connections. She knew that pretty well. He was one of the reasons her dad still had a job. VladCo had bought Axion Labs, after all.

Valerie glanced down. The mountains of pennies had disappeared with Desiree, and the trees and everything else were back to normal. And, judging by the guy who was hurrying away with a bit of a limp, there wasn't anything else to worry about here. Turning her jet sled in the direction of Mr. Masters's mansion, she headed off to tell him about the news. Then, when she called Tucker, she might just be able to tell him about the newest recruit to the search and the new plan of action. Mr. Masters always seemed to have a plan, and she hoped he'd have one this time.

If not…. Well, if not, he'd come up with something soon enough. He had to. She and Sam and Tucker might mean well, but they were just teenagers. The chances of finding a missing family before the police would even classify them as missing persons and start looking were slim to nil. They needed help, and, whether Danny liked it or not, Vlad Masters was their best bet, near as Valerie could tell. There wasn't anyone else to turn to.

* * *

><p>By the time they got to Tucker's, Danny was half transformed into Danny Phantom, and Jazz couldn't ignore it any longer. She put her foot down. "Danny," she said, putting her hands on her hips, "what's going on?"<p>

"It's fine, Jazz."

It wasn't fine. It wasn't anything near fine. First the boots, then the suit. It was minus the logo, but all he needed were his gloves and a colour change to his eyes and hair to complete things. They hadn't seen another living soul, but that didn't mean that Danny's cover couldn't be blown. "I didn't even know you could do that," Jazz said, waving a hand at Danny's clothing. "I thought it was all or nothing."

"It…normally is." The words were mumbled, but she still heard them.

She crossed her arms this time. "I need to know, Danny."

He sighed. "It's not me," he admitted. "I mean, it's not intentional. I'm just…changing."

Jazz raised an eyebrow. "And you don't know why?" Danny glared at her, and she relented. "All right, so you don't know why. Hasn't this ever happened before?"

"Not like this."

Jazz thought for a moment. "Did you get hit with anything recently, as Phantom or Fenton? I know Mom and Dad have a couple inventions in experimental stages in the lab, and last time I was down there, one exploded."

Danny chuckled. "So that's why you had green gunk in your hair when I got home a couple nights ago."

"It's not funny, Danny. Some of those things could have a different effect on you."

"And you think this might be it?"

It was hardly a question, considering the sarcasm her little brother had managed to inject into it, but Jazz answered anyway. "Yes," she insisted. "What else could it be?"

"Oh, I don't know," Danny replied, somehow putting even more sarcasm into his voice. "Maybe it's because of the same thing that caused all the rest of this?"

Jazz pursed her lips and didn't give him an answer. He hadn't wanted one, anyway. Instead, she said, "Maybe you'll be able to change back if you change completely first."

"Doubt it."

"You won't know if you don't try."

"Yeah, and if I _do_ try, Jazz," Danny pointed out, "I might get stuck that way."

"At this rate, you're not going to have a choice," she argued. "Besides, what if someone sees you?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Who? There's no one else here." He jerked his thumb at Tucker's house. "No one's answering the door here, either." He sneezed again, and Jazz frowned. The last thing they needed right now was for Danny to be sick, but it was getting sort of hard to deny that he'd come down with something.

"There's Mom and Dad."

"Who are at the school," Danny reminded her.

"But they won't be forever," Jazz said. "We have to tell them what happened."

"Jazz, we don't _know_ what happened."

"I know." Jazz was quiet for a moment. "We'll need their help, Danny. We can't put things right by ourselves. And when I do tell them something's wrong, which I will, whether you want me to or not, you know the first thing they'll do is try to find you."

"Second thing," Danny corrected dully. "They'll pack up a good arsenal of weapons first, which will come in handy when they find the ghost kid and try to rip me apart molecule by molecule."

"Just try changing, Danny. Please. It can't hurt."

"You don't understand, Jazz. I know you want to. I know you want to understand. But you can't, because I can't explain it. I can't control this. I _can't_ change back. And if I _do_ go ghost, all I'll accomplish is painting a bull's-eye on myself for Mom and Dad's weapons!"

Jazz, unsure of what to say, just looked at her brother for a moment. He'd crossed his arms and was now staring at his boots, avoiding her gaze. "Oh, Danny," she finally said, reaching out to put a hand on his arm, "I won't let them hurt you."

"You might not be able to stop them." Danny's voice was quiet. He was worried, and scared, and he didn't know what was going on, and that bothered him as much as the situation itself. But at least he didn't shake her hand off.

"It'll work out," Jazz said, even though, at the moment, she didn't know how it would. They needed to figure out what was causing Danny to change and whether or not it was related to everything else. They needed to figure out where everyone else was, or where they'd gone, and how it had happened. They needed to figure out who was behind this.

Jazz rang the doorbell, hoping to take Danny's mind off of things, but she knew as well as he did that they wouldn't get an answer because no one was home. They didn't even bother searching the house this time. As Danny had said when Jazz had suggested it, hoping it might help, they wouldn't find any clues at Tucker's. Things hadn't started to go wrong there. It had all started back at the school, back at the auditorium, back at the ghost hunters' convention their parents had decided to host.

When they did reach the school again, however, Danny hung back. "Just…tell them you took me home," he said at Jazz's questioning look. Barring his eyes and the lack of logo on his chest, he was in his phantom form. "I'm not supposed to be here anyway. I'm supposed to be sick."

"You _are_ sick," Jazz reminded him as he sneezed again.

Danny, to Jazz's disgust, wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I'll be fine. It's just a cold." He squared his shoulders and finished transforming into Danny Phantom before looking at Jazz with bright green eyes. "But you're right. Bull's-eye or not, I might as well take the last step. It's better to change on my own terms. Just try to turn off as many inventions as you can, okay? I'm going to look around town to see if there's anything we missed, but I'll meet you back here."

"I'll see if Mom and Dad have any ideas about what's happened," Jazz said by way of agreement. "Be careful, Danny."

Danny gave her a distracted nod and took to the air. When he was out of sight, Jazz sighed and turned back to the school. She had her own work to do, and trying to protect her little brother was the least of it. Danny had already proven time and again that he could take care of himself, but….

She just hoped he could this time, too. Just in case.


	7. Chapter 7

By the time Sam reached Danny's house, Tucker was already there. "House is empty," he reported as she came up to him. "I already looked." Sam just nodded; she hadn't expected anything else. "I've got Danny's map of the Ghost Zone," Tucker continued, pulling it out, "and I think our best bet would be to talk to Frostbite."

"Do we have time to make it to the Far Frozen?" Sam asked uncertainly. "We could just head over to see Dora and start there. She's closer, and then we might be able to split up and cover more ground if she's willing to take on a passenger."

"I don't think we should split up," Tucker said. "I mean, if Walker gets a hold of either of us, we might be in a bit more trouble, and judging by what Valerie and Danny went through that one time, Skulker's probably not above taking prisoners to try to lure Danny to him for a good hunt, either. And, face it; from what we've seen of the Ghost Zone, Danny has more enemies than friends. They've all got to be in trouble to put that aside and help him."

"We don't know that they aren't," Sam pointed out.

"No, but they won't believe us otherwise," Tucker reminded her. "And, anyway, I've worked out a schedule." Tucker's ever-faithful PDA was shoved under her nose then. "If we don't take a wrong turn and we're running at top speed, we should be at the Far Frozen within the hour. Then we talk to Frostbite, see if he's heard anything—"

"He's in the Far Frozen," Sam said bluntly. "He won't have heard anything."

Tucker shrugged. "Maybe not. But he _might_ let us use the Infi-Map to find Danny."

"Because it takes us where we want to go," Sam said, smiling for the first time since this mess had begun. "And it would be able to find him."

"See?" Tucker said. "Sometimes I _can_ be the smart—awk!" Sam grabbed Tucker's arm and jerked him inside before he could finish his sentence. He hardly had time to slam the door before she dragged him down to Danny's parents' lab. They didn't have any time to lose.

"You navigate," Sam called over her shoulder as she released Tucker and sprinted for the Spectre Speeder. "I'm driving." She waited impatiently while Tucker finished keying in the override code to access the Fenton Portal and took off the moment he climbed inside the Spectre Speeder.

"You know," Tucker said, pulling himself off the floor and into the seat, "Danny's going to kill us if a whole bunch of ghosts come through while we're gone."

Sam shrugged. "We've done it before, and he's captured a whole bunch before. It's nothing new. We don't have school tomorrow, anyway. Besides," she added, finally sparing Tucker a proper look, "you said you told Valerie what was going on, right? She can handle them. It's time she did us a favour, anyway. Now, where do I turn?"

"Just give me a second," Tucker said. "I'm calibrating my PDA to the map so I can track our route electronically, and—"

"Just tell me if it's right or left at Skulker's island," Sam interrupted. "I don't remember."

"Right," Tucker said. "It's left at Walker's prison."

"I thought that was the way to Dora's," Sam said. "Let me see that." Throwing the Spectre Speeder onto autopilot, she leaned over to look at the map. "Yes, see? I'm right. That's a castle you're leading us to, not an iceberg. And, anyway, then it'd be faster just to go straight."

"Then we go around the swirling vortex here," Tucker said. "Hang a left at Skulker's."

"That's a thumbprint," Sam reminded him. She sighed. "Geez, didn't Danny _ever_ update this?"

"He said he was going to draw a new one."

"And yet you grabbed the old one," Sam pointed out. "I'm asking for directions."

"From what, an ectopuss?" Tucker raised his eyebrows. "C'mon, Sam. Danny's found it again on his own before. We can, too."

"You just don't want to ask for directions," Sam grumbled.

"I'm running our coordinates against the map," Tucker said. "Just head straight past Skulker's, then we'll turn after."

"When you admit that you don't know where we're going?" Sam muttered.

"Just trust me, okay?"

Sam was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. I trust you," she said. She trusted both Danny and Tucker with her life. It was just hard not to be…to think about what might've….

"I've got the electronic version of the map I've been making, anyway," Tucker continued. "Danny's map was just a guide, until I reset the scale, which should be done…right about now."

Sam smacked him. "Straight on past Skulker's, then?" She didn't bother hiding the relief in her voice—or her frustration with Tucker. He knew this wasn't funny, and trying to make light of things wasn't helping.

"I'll tell you when to turn," Tucker confirmed.

* * *

><p>Valerie used the emergency window entrance to Vlad's study. Technically, she wasn't supposed to unless he called her, but it <em>was <em>the fastest route. Once she was safely inside, she powered down her jet sled and dropped to the floor. "Mr. Masters?" she called uncertainly. She'd thought he would be in here.

She left for the hallway. "Mr. Masters?" she called again. Surely he was—

"Valerie, what are you doing here?"

Valerie jumped and spun around. Vlad Masters stood there, looking as impressive as ever. Where he'd come from, she hadn't a clue. "Mr. Masters," she said, "forgive me, but I thought I should tell you. I thought you might be able to help."

"To help with what?" he asked, sounding…not interested, but at least polite.

"It's Danny," Valerie began. "He—"

"Ah, yes, young Daniel. What is he up to now?"

"He's gone," Valerie said. "Him and his whole family. Tucker told me; all the Fentons have disappeared, and no one knows where they've gone."

"What?" There was no trace of amusement in his voice now, no more thought that Danny had just been playing a joke, that she might be overreacting. "Maddie's gone?" Vlad repeated. Seeming to catch himself, he said, "Maddie and her dear family are gone? Disappeared?"

Valerie nodded. "Tucker told me. He and Sam can't get a hold of Danny, and they can't find him. They're still looking. But Mr. and Mrs. Fenton and Jazz are gone, too, and Sam and Tucker figure it has something to do with ghosts." She shifted on her feet for a moment. "I tracked down the Box Ghost, but he didn't know anything and he didn't stick around, and I was too busy to chase him. Then I found Desiree, and I tried to get her into a thermos, but it didn't work."

"Didn't work?" Vlad repeated, sounding doubtful.

Valerie shrugged. "I don't know what happened. She was there, and then she wasn't, but she's not in the thermos, either. I brought it in case you wanted to look at it or something, but the thing is, I think Desiree knows something."

"And what makes you say that, my dear girl?"

"Something she said to me when we were fighting," Valerie said. "I mean, it's the result of a wish. She admitted that. She admitted that she granted a wish—_my_ wish—but I didn't wish for this to happen to the Fentons. It didn't even have anything to do with them. I just…. It was early, and I was annoyed, I guess, and no one else was around, so I wasn't really watching my words, and I was talking to myself, and I kind of…wished for something."

"Wished for what?" Vlad asked.

"It had nothing to do with the Fentons," Valerie repeated hurriedly. "I just, I mean, it was about Danny Phantom, that's all. He's the reason I'm a ghost hunter. Well, him, and you, since you gave me the stuff, but…." Valerie trailed off, trying to read Vlad's face.

Vlad's lips were set in a thin line. It wasn't anger—well, not anger directed at her, anyway—but she couldn't quite tell what he was thinking. "Thank you, Valerie," he said. "I'm going to make a few calls. I don't know if I can help you, exactly, but I have known the Fentons for a long time, and I haven't forgotten our college days together. I might be able to turn up something to help. In the meantime, I suggest that you keep an eye out for anything…noteworthy."

Valerie shifted on her feet for a moment. "Did you want to check the thermos?" she asked.

Vlad sighed. "I'll have it looked at, I suppose, but I doubt it is a malfunction. You may leave it in my study when you go."

"Yes, Mr. Masters. Thank you." Valerie quickly retraced her steps and went back into the study. After leaving the thermos behind on the desk, she activated her jet sled again and shot out the window. Vlad would help, somehow. She had faith in him. Besides, he _was_ good friends with the Fentons, so it wasn't like he was just doing her a favour. He'd want them back, too.

She just wasn't sure why anyone would think she'd ever want them gone. She and Danny, and even Sam and Tucker, were friends now, sort of. True, she wasn't dating Tucker or Danny, but she'd had a lot of stuff on her plate, and she still did. But when she _had_ been dating them—well, when she'd been dating Danny, at least—she'd learned about him, more than she'd known before, and she kind of…. Okay. So she still kind of liked him. Yeah, she knew he and Sam were going to get together sometime, but until then, well….

Forget 'until then'. There might never _be_ an 'until then' unless she and Sam and Tucker could find the Fentons now. Besides, she was still busy. That hadn't changed any. And Danny still didn't know that she was the Red Huntress, so she couldn't really explain anything, but…. She didn't have time for this; none of that mattered, anyway. She was just worrying about the past because she was too afraid to worry about the present and because she didn't really want to think about the nastier things that the future might bring. But none of that was helping. Danny and his family were in trouble, and she had to help save them. And she would. She was.

"Don't worry, guys," Valerie said, crouching down on her sled as she increased her speed. "We're going to find you, wherever you are. We'll get you back."

* * *

><p>Maddie looked up just in time to see Jazz walk through the doors. "Oh, Jazz, honey, did you get Danny home all right?"<p>

"Yes, Mom," Jazz answered. "But, um, there's somethi—"

"Did you take his temperature like I asked?" Maddie continued. "And make sure he'll stay in bed?"

"Yes, he's curled up with a book—"

"A book?" Maddie interrupted, frowning. "That doesn't sound like Danny."

"Oh, uh, it was about space," Jazz added hurriedly. "You know, more stuff to prepare him to be an astronaut. But, Mom, there's something wrong."

"Something wrong?" Jack interrupted, looking up from the Ecto-Entrapper. He was fiddling with it again, sure he could enhance its signal. Maddie had thought it best to just leave him to it until someone showed up.

Jazz nodded, biting her lip. "We can't find anyone else. I mean, we didn't see anyone. The streets are empty, and Danny phoned Sam and Tucker to tell them that he was sick and going home, but he couldn't get a hold of either of them. I just…. I've got a bad feeling."

"It's the ghosts," Jack proclaimed. "They've done something to everyone. We'll find out what's behind this and rip it apart molecule by molecule!"

"Jack, dear, don't jump to conclusions," Maddie reprimanded gently. "Jazz, just because you didn't see anyone and Danny can't get in touch with his friends, it doesn't mean anything's happened."

"We swung by Sam's on the way," Jazz admitted. "Danny insisted. He wanted to at least tell one of them where he was. But no one was home, and you know that Mr. and Mrs. Manson—"

"Oh, yes, I know them, all right," Maddie interrupted. She still wasn't impressed with them, exactly. They didn't care for jumpsuits, and they'd once filed a restraining order against Danny, for goodness's sakes. As if her son was the reason for Sam's actions. The poor girl was simply trying to rebel because of the way her parents stifled her. Not like her; she and Jack made sure to encourage their children's interests, showing them the latest inventions, keeping them up-to-date on the latest ghostly happenings….

"But I really think this has something to do with ghosts," Jazz insisted. "I mean, the entire town is _gone_, except for us."

"You don't know that, sweetheart. You just walked home with Danny to put him to bed."

"Unless she saw something," Jack countered. "Did you see anything? Any of the signs of ghosts we've taught you?"

"Well, no, but the lack of a sign is surely as much an indicator as a sign itself," Jazz said. "Ghosts must be behind this."

"I'm not entirely sure what you said," Jack admitted, "but I believe you. Come on, Jazzy-pants! Let's go hunt ghosts."

"Jack," Maddie said, crossing her arms, "what about the convention? We can't just leave it." Jack looked disappointed for a moment, and Maddie relented. "Oh, all right," she said. "You and Jazz can go look for signs of ghostly activity, and I'll stay here in case anyone turns up. But if you find anything, you be sure to call me, all right?" She smiled. "I've learned the value of a cell phone now, and I've got mine with me. I don't want to miss out on the fun."

The smile on Maddie's face faded once her husband and daughter were out of sight. She pushed back the hood of her hazmat suit with a sigh. She hadn't wanted Jack to be right; he'd said ghosts were behind this, the reason the convention was such a failure. While she'd known it was a possibility, one she'd initially been convinced of herself, when she'd had time to think it over, she really hadn't thought the ghosts would take the route of action they had. The ghosts, she'd assumed, would simply try to destroy the place, and then they could be dealt with accordingly. Instead, they'd shown a kind of cunning she hadn't expected from them. They'd somehow managed to isolate them.

Jazz had said that everyone else had disappeared. Maddie wasn't so sure. With the kind of power that would take, Jazz shouldn't have missed the signs. She should have been certain. Granted, even if _they_ were the ones who had disappeared, as Maddie was beginning to suspect, they ought to have noticed something, too.

Maddie picked up an ectogun from the display table and made her way outside, trying to see if anything was noticeably different. She'd been out earlier, just briefly, to see if Danny and his friends had sneaked outside as Jazz had suspected. Then, things had been fine. There'd been cars passing, the chatter of birds, a dog barking in the distance—usual things, usual signs of life. But now….

It was quiet now.

The streets were empty, and the world was silent. Well, silent except for the telltale rumble of the Assault Vehicle, but that only signalled the presence of Jack and Jazz.

And yet, if a ghost was behind this, why had they not detected its presence? They had enough of their inventions with them that something should have alerted them that a ghost was nearby.

"Except Jack turned most of those off," Maddie remembered, "because they still react to Danny. He didn't want to excite anyone over false readings." She shouldn't have forgotten that. She'd gotten complacent. But it was too late to worry about that now, too late to think that perhaps she _should _have let Danny stay home. He'd told her he hadn't slept well, and then to find out that he was ill, she couldn't deny that he needed the rest. He was safe at home for the time being.

Right now, she had to try to find out what had happened. She wouldn't stray too far—she'd said she wouldn't, just in case Jazz had been mistaken—but the school might hold some sign of what had happened, perhaps even give a clue as to which ghost was behind this.

Providing it was a ghost they had fought before. With a more complex, more _calculated_, attack like this, she wasn't so sure it would be. And when she and Jack had gone up against stronger ghosts in the past, they'd had help—from the Red Huntress and, whether she liked to admit it or not, Danny Phantom. That particular piece of ectoplasm gave her mixed feelings. As much as Jazz—and even Danny, when he paid attention—tried to insist that that ghost didn't have an ulterior motive, Maddie doubted he was as noble as he tried to appear to be.

He was a ghost. Ghosts were evil. It was as simple as that.

And the ghost that was behind this, whichever one it was, would pay. She wasn't sure what it had done. Amity Park hadn't been pulled into the Ghost Zone again—the sky was a clear blue, the sun directly overhead—and the fact that they could leave the school meant that it wasn't just Casper High that was affected. The ghost's power had, in all likelihood, been specifically directed at them.

Unless…unless this was just a guise. This could very easily be a trick. Perhaps none of this was any more real than a dream. A powerful enough ghost could fabricate this little piece of reality and drop them into it. It would explain the lack of life forms. She hardly expected that keeping plants in their role was as difficult as organizing the actions of birds, or watching over all the interactions of people, or anything like that. Or, for all she knew, there was a ghost out there that could script her life, write out what was going to happen and when and watch it unfold, and was doing this for mere entertainment.

She didn't know. She couldn't know, and she wasn't the one who had set out to find any information. The most she could do was go around the school with the Fenton Finder, or perhaps see if she could strengthen Jack's Ecto-Entrapper, or maybe just go home and look after Danny. He must be worried about his friends, and she rather doubted her son would stay put and stay at home in bed, even if he was sick. If she'd known, she would've told Jazz to stay with him. Danny didn't always think before he acted, and to know that he might be out on his own, with a ghost after them….

Maddie reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. It had been Danny who'd finally convinced her to get one, after that DALV fiasco when they'd ended up stranded with Vlad in one of his hunting lodges. He'd been so disgusted that she hadn't had something he considered so essential, and by the end of the night, she had seen the value of the thing in an emergency, which is why she'd finally relented and bought one.

Biting her lip, Maddie dialled her home phone number and waited for her son to pick up. She knew he would, if only because he thought it might be one of his friends trying to call him. He wasn't so heavy a sleeper that he'd miss it altogether, even if he was ill.

But the phone, to Maddie's dismay, just kept ringing.

* * *

><p>As far as Danny could tell, Amity Park was empty. There wasn't a car on the streets or a person on the sidewalk or any sign of life in any of the buildings he'd passed through. He'd seen a lot of weird things in his life, but somehow seeing a normally-bustling city dead in the middle of the day without any signs of an imminent ghost attack was right up there with the existence of half ghosts and the fact that the people of the Far Frozen called him the Great One when almost every other ghost seemed out for his head. Or his pelt, in Skulker's case.<p>

He'd already started back towards the school when he caught sight of the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle barrelling down the streets below him. He cringed and took off in another direction, trying to get out of range of its ghost radar. The last thing he needed was for his parents to blame this on him.

Though, judging by the path he'd seen the Assault Vehicle taking, it had been his dad who'd been driving. Even with empty streets, he still seemed to find obstacles to swerve around. So, Jazz had definitely told their parents, but they might've split up. Someone was bound to be back at the school. He hoped it would be Jazz, but he had a feeling she'd be saddled with their dad. If she'd said she suspected a ghost was behind anything, Jack Fenton certainly wouldn't miss the opportunity to take his daughter with him to show her a few more tricks of the trade.

That meant that his mother was probably back at the school.

Danny slowed to a stop and hovered for a moment, thinking. He really didn't want to go back to Casper High as Danny Phantom and run into his mom. If he was going to get blasted at by one of his parents, he'd be a lot safer near his dad. And there _was_ a slim chance that he and Jazz had noticed something he hadn't. He had taken an aerial route, after all. But before he went back, he should really….

Danny drifted down to the sidewalk and ducked out of view, more out of habit than anything else. Closing his eyes, he searched for that familiar warmth inside him that held his human half. It was there, he could feel it, but he couldn't…. He couldn't grab it.

He couldn't change back.

He was stuck as Danny Phantom.

The one time he was right and Jazz was wrong, and it had to be something like this, something that was undeniably really, really bad for him. He couldn't even gloat about it and watch Jazz tear her hair out because she'd gotten something wrong. She wouldn't; she'd be too worried about him. Because he was trapped in his ghost form, which meant his parents would end up hunting him because he couldn't very well hide from them for very long when it looked like they were the only ones left in the city. That, in turn, was because of something else that had gone wrong that they would probably blame on him when they found him—just before they strapped him to a table and started experimenting, before they ripped him apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule. "Aw, crud."

* * *

><p>AN: Step 2: Make sure Danny's stuck in ghost mode. Check. Step 3: Isolation. In progress. Isn't that a cheerful prospect? Thanks to everyone who's following this story, and an extra thank you to everyone who takes the time to review.


	8. Chapter 8

Tucker grimaced and checked to make sure that his PDA had survived, which it thankfully had. Despite his excellent directions, Sam had still managed to crash the Spectre Speeder into a snow drift. At least they weren't upside down. "Come on," Tucker said, shoving the Fenton Phone that had fallen off his ear into his pocket when he saw Sam doing the same with hers. "We better head in on foot. I don't know if you're going to get out of that." She'd practically ploughed them in; frankly, he figured they were lucky they could still see sky—or whatever passed for sky in the Ghost Zone—above them.

Sam looked doubtful for a moment, but then she squared her shoulders. "Yeah. Sorry. Didn't expect that wind gust."

Wind gust his foot; she just couldn't swerve around the chucks of ice fast enough. But Sam jumped out into the snow and Tucker followed, even though neither of them was dressed for the weather. They hadn't thought that one through. But, hopefully, Frostbite or someone else would find them and take them back to camp and lend them some warm coats again and make them some hot chocolate.

Providing they were there long enough to drink it. If things went according to plan, they wouldn't be. They'd take the Infi-Map and it would drag them along to wherever Danny was. They could come back for the Spectre Speeder later.

"I t-think it's t-that way," Tucker said, trying to control his chattering teeth.

Sam shot him a sidelong look. "H-how c-can you t-t-tell?" she asked. He simply held up his PDA, and she nodded. Tucker couldn't help but smile. After all these years, Sam shouldn't expect any less of him.

Five minutes later—or maybe it was half an hour or just a minute, but it felt like a really, really long time in the cold, and anyway, the wind had picked up and they'd lost sight of the Spectre Speeder, which made Tucker wonder why they'd left its warmth in the first place—they saw two of Frostbite's people coming towards them on a jet sled of sorts. Tucker wasn't sure how they'd found them. Maybe they patrolled the grounds or something, to fend off other ghosts. Granted, he didn't think a lot of ghosts would be able to withstand this cold….

Whatever the reason for the sudden and very welcome appearance of the others, he and Sam certainly didn't complain when they were picked up and taken back to base. A pair of parkas and a couple steaming mugs of hot chocolate later, they were finally able to explain to Frostbite what had happened—as far as they knew it, anyway—and why they'd come.

It didn't take much explaining, thankfully. Frostbite remembered them as the servants of the Great One—Sam of the Very Vegan and Tucker of the Treasured Technology—and he'd guessed something was wrong when they'd turned up without the Saviour of the Ghost Zone. However, judging by his expression, he hadn't expected their request when they had finally warmed up enough to stutter it out.

"I don't know," Frostbite said slowly, "whether the map will help you."

"We have to try," Sam insisted. After a small pause, she added, "Please? For Danny's sake?"

Frostbite smiled at her. "Very well. It would be an honour to assist the Great One's servants in rescuing him, if we are able. But this time, I will be escorting you on your journey." This statement was accompanied with a rather stern look, so Tucker and Sam nodded quickly to show their understanding.

They followed Frostbite through a tunnel and toward a room that housed a chest with a familiar purple glow. Frostbite opened the chest and gently reached for the Infi-Map. It unrolled in his hands and he held it out so that they could each grab hold. "And you are certain that the Great One is being held captive in the Ghost Zone?" Frostbite asked, even though Tucker had already told him what the Box Ghost had said.

"He's not back in Amity Park," Tucker confirmed, "and he's out of range of the Booo-merang, so he's got to be here somewhere."

"The Infi-Map is more accustomed to finding doors, you realize," Frostbite cautioned yet again. "It takes you to places, not to people. I do not want you to be disappointed if—"

"No," Sam said, interrupting. "It'll work. It has to." She looked down at it, then said, quietly, "Take us to Danny."

For a heartbreaking moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then the map lit up and they were whisked away before any of them could see the path it had traced.

* * *

><p>Vlad Masters went to his secret lab the minute Valerie left him. The news she had brought wasn't wholly pleasant. As much as he wanted Jack Fenton out of the picture, he did not want to lose Maddie. Nor, he supposed, did he wish to see the last of her children. As much as Daniel detested him now, the boy would surely come around sometime. He was insufferable in the meantime, of course, but it would be so much harder for the boy to hate him on principle if he saved the boy's life and that of his family.<p>

To do that, however, he needed to find out precisely where the Fentons had gone, and the simplest way to do that was to track down a certain wishing ghost who had, as he understood it, magicked the family away. He knew Valerie was competent enough not to mistake whether or not she'd managed to capture Desiree, but he had doubted that Desiree would be able to evade the thermos if Valerie had used it. Clearly, however, he'd been wrong.

The easiest way to find the ghost was probably to enlist help and divide up the work, but he really did not feel like making any promises to Technus or Skulker or the like. He'd heard far too much of their intolerable ranting lately. Master of All Things Technological or the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter? Neither of them truly deserved the titles they gave themselves, and they hadn't a whit of true sense or anything more than mediocre skill. They were certainly not to be entrusted with finding the one ghost in the entire Ghost Zone who could lead him to Maddie Fenton.

The only one he trusted to do that job was himself. Transforming into his ghost form, Vlad Plasmius activated his computer software and couldn't help but smile when Maddie—his hologram program of her, at least—sprang into view and welcomed him with a loving greeting. Vlad responded in kind, listening as she started the obligatory list of compliments, and, just for a moment, tried to forget that it wasn't the real Maddie speaking to him.

But if he didn't find her, he might never hear her again.

"What would you like, darling?" the Maddie hologram asked pleasantly, once she had finished her current list of compliments.

"Scan Amity Park and tell me which ghosts are here," Vlad answered. "Proper ghosts," he clarified, "not just those bits of ectoplasm that keep floating around until they conglomerate into something."

"Of course, sweetums," the hologram responded. "Initiating scanning now." Her picture glitched for a moment, but she remained smiling. He should work on fixing the image, really; he'd left it as is for far too long. Yes, he'd have to fix it soon. Sometime…sometime when the real Maddie wasn't in danger. "Scanning complete, darling," Maddie announced. "Two ghosts detected."

"Daniel and myself, I presume?" At least this confirmed that Desiree had given Valerie the slip somehow, and it assured him that she hadn't taken the Fentons far. Not that he'd expected she would have. Desiree's magic was, well, not as powerful as she would have liked it to be.

"Negative, sweetie. I have located yourself and the Box Ghost. He is currently raiding one of the storage facilities and liberating the boxes from their confinement."

Oh, sugar cookies, he'd forgotten all about the Box Ghost. "Can you trace Daniel's ecto-signature? Pinpoint him?" He certainly had enough samples of the boy's ectoplasm that it _ought_ to be possible to formulate a simple tracker from it, if not from the numerous analyses he'd obtained from the data relayed by Valerie's equipment during her fights with the boy. Jack Fenton had invented that godforsaken Booo-merang, and if that could key in on the boy's ecto-signature, surely his computer ought to be able to do the same.

"The ecto-signature you have requested cannot be found, sweetheart," Maddie replied at length. "The subject is not within range."

Not within range…. Then in the Ghost Zone, perhaps? There were more than a few unpleasant places that Desiree could have dropped the Fentons, ones he doubted Daniel had even discovered. Even if they had managed to escape, the boy might not be able to find his way back to the Fenton Portal—or any portal he recognized, for that matter.

Well, whether or not the Fentons were in the Ghost Zone, he was certain that Desiree was. He'd have to find her. He knew the usual haunts of all the ghosts that usually frequented Amity Park, and the wishing ghost was no exception. It shouldn't take him long to find her, nor should it be very long before he got an answer out of her. Plasmius was a ghost who demanded respect, and he was a sight more powerful than a simple wishing ghost who didn't know how to twist the wishes she heard in the right way.

* * *

><p>The minute the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle detected a ghost, Jack primed every weapon connected to the system. Jazz had tried to surreptitiously turn the weapons system offline when she'd realized that the ghost they'd detected was none other than Danny Phantom, but Jack had stopped her; she had to learn sometime that every ghost was evil through and through. Just because one was evil enough and conniving enough to pretend to be good, that didn't mean it was. Ghosts always tried to trick the living.<p>

"Maybe we should question him first," Jazz suggested as Jack busied himself with centering the crosshairs on the ghost boy.

"We do have to question him," Jack confirmed, "but it's best to do it when we're in control of the situation. Don't be fooled, Jazzy-pants. Unless you are certain you have a ghost contained, you are not the one in control, even if they pretend you are." He narrowed his eyes. "We'll question this ghost once we've got him right where we want him, and then we'll find out what he did."

"But maybe he didn't do anything," Jazz said hurriedly. "He looks as confused as we are."

"That's part of the trick," Jack informed her.

"But maybe he—"

"Jazz," Jack interrupted, thrusting the controls in her direction, "be sure you hit him right between the eyes."

"Dad, I don't _want_—"

"It's the only way we'll be able to question him."

"No, it's not," Jazz protested. "Dad, this isn't ethical! Do you know what effect being _attacked_ can have on the teenage psyche?"

"It's a ghost," was all Jack said. "Remember," he added, "right between the eyes."

Jazz looked down at the controls, then back at her father. "I can't, Dad. I mean, look, he's coming straight for us, and we're not exactly hard to miss. Maybe he wants to ask _us_ questions."

"Jasmine, you're forgetting the first rules of ghost hunting," Jack said. "Ghosts are evil. Ghosts do not have emotions. Ghosts will do anything to convince you of a lie in order to get what they want. He's not coming to ask us questions; he's coming in for the attack."

"Dad, if he'd wanted to attack us, he could've done it from fifty feet further away!"

"That's what he wants you to think," Jack said patiently, ignoring the fact that Jazz had just slapped her hand to her forehead in typical teenage frustration. She'd see reason soon enough. "He's trying to lull you into a false sense of security." Jack eased the controls back to him. "Here, I'll take the first shot and show you how it's done."

"No!" Jazz grabbed the controls and yanked them back. "You're right," she added. "It's all a trick. I'll get him. Right…between…the eyes." She fired.

The ghost skidded to a halt in mid-air as the shot went high and wide.

"Your aim seemed to be better this morning," Jack commented.

"It's, um, a handheld device," Jazz said. "I'm better with those. I've had more practice. I've done a bit more since the time Mom and Danny went off to that symposium in Florida."

"That's my little girl," Jack said, grinning. He passed her an ectogun. "You go on foot, then. I'll back you up from here. You need a little more hands-on experience, and I'll watch your back. If that ghost so much as looks at you the wrong way, I'll blast him to pieces."

Jazz swallowed, then nodded and took the ectogun. "I'll try to lead him off," she suggested, opening the door and sliding out of the Assault Vehicle. "Get him trapped." She'd slammed the door shut and sprinted off towards the ghost before he could correct her: you didn't trap a ghost; it trapped you, unless you could capture it.

Maybe he ought to back her up on foot anyhow. She wasn't likely to run anywhere he couldn't follow—especially with the streets being this empty—but if he stayed in here, he couldn't even hear what she was shouting at the ghost. And she was clearly shouting something, and he was responding and waving his arms, though not yet firing at her. Perhaps all that psychology she read about did pay off in ghost hunting. Had the ghost been a human, he might have said that it was confused.

But then Jazz took aim with the ectogun, and there was no mistaking that. Phantom jerked to one side as Jazz's shot missed by less than a foot and, as she'd predicted, he turned tail and started to fly off. Jazz ran after him on foot. She wasn't, Jack noted, keeping the gun trained on the ghost or even at the ready. He'd have to correct her for that. At least she wasn't taking her eyes off her target, and her prediction as to the ghost's actions had been correct this time. It was a good sign, as long as she didn't get complacent. Ghosts did tend to stick to the same routine, but you could never count on it, because the time you did was the time it would change.

Jack edged the Assault Vehicle forward, keeping far enough away from Jazz to give her a chance to handle this on her own but remaining close enough that he could help her if he needed to. It just looked like she needed a bit of practice, a bit more field experience, and then she'd be as good as her mother. It seemed like just yesterday that she'd been sitting on his lap, looking over the blueprints of different weapons he was going to design, and now she was out there using them, all grown up.

Jack sniffed and wiped at his eyes. No matter how often Jazz insisted that she didn't approve of their ghost hunting, that she didn't want to be part of it, she was, and this was one of those special times when she embraced it as a family legacy. She was his clever, clever daughter, who was going to be a ghost hunter and a psychologist.

It might take a while to convince Danny that he, as a Fenton, would also be a ghost hunter. He'd seemed even more reluctant over the past year to help them out—since they'd confirmed the existence of ghosts and had been fending off regular attacks, really—but he'd told Maddie often enough that it was probably just a stage. Or was it Jazz who had first said that? He couldn't remember, but it had sounded good, so he'd repeated it.

Phantom dodged into an alley and Jazz ran off to follow. Another mistake, Jack noted as she disappeared. She couldn't trap a ghost in a dead end, not when they could phase through the buildings. He quickly brought the Assault Vehicle around to help her, convinced Phantom would take this opportunity to fire at Jazz, probably by coming up behind her.

But Jasmine, Jack realized as he reached the alley, wasn't there.

Phantom, probably hearing the Assault Vehicle, glanced back over his shoulder and halted, hanging perhaps twenty, thirty feet above the ground. He wasn't staring at Jack, though. He, too, was staring at the alley.

The empty alley.

Jack grabbed a Jack-o'-Nine-Tails and an ectogun and sprang out of the Assault Vehicle. "What did you do to my daughter, ghost?" he roared.

"I…I…I didn't—"

Jack didn't wait for the ghost to finish. He let off a round of blasts, forcing Phantom to duck and turn, twisting in mid air. "Where is she?"

"I don't know!"

"What kind of trap did you put her in?" Jack continued, narrowing his eyes and he took aim again. "If you don't tell me where she is, I'll rip you apart molecule by molecule!"

"No! Da—Jack, you don't understand! I don't know where she is. She was right behind me, and then she wasn't."

"You're lying." Jack fired again, and this time, Phantom went intangible and flew off, cutting through the buildings so Jack couldn't follow.

Jack frowned. The ghost kid was running, and he wasn't talking. It might take a bit of convincing to get Jazz's location out of him once they had him captured and secured. At least they knew who was behind this. To think Jazz had thought he was innocent, that he was good. He might've been able to fool Jazz, but that ghost boy certainly didn't fool Jack—especially not after he'd done something to Jazz, leading her right into whatever trap he'd set.

Jack tucked the weapons into his pockets and climbed back into the Assault Vehicle. He had to tell Maddie what he'd learned, and then they'd better go get Danny before something happened to him, too. Providing that conniving ghost kid hadn't gotten to him already….

He was just about to turn on the engine when he heard a phone ringing.

He and Maddie shared a cell phone, something she'd insisted they get after that mother-son science symposium she and Danny had been invited to. Both the kids had one, though. Maybe Jazz had dropped hers when she'd been snatched away?

Jack found the phone in the alley, still ringing, but when he saw it, he knew it wasn't Jazz's.

It was Danny's.

He picked it up and flipped it open, answering the call. Before he could open his mouth, Maddie's voice came through the speaker, loud and clear. _"Danny?"_

"He's not here, Mads," Jack replied grimly. "That ghost kid must've got him before he got Jazz."

"_Ghost kid? You mean Phantom? He's got Danny and_ _Jazz?"_ There was a pause, then a stifled sob. _"Oh, Jack, the kids…."_

"We'll find them," Jack said firmly. "I don't know where he took them, but we'll find them, and we'll get them out of there."

"_They might not be the ones who need rescuing_._"_ Maddie's voice was soft, but Jack could hear her easily enough. _"Pick me up at the school. We'll find Phantom, and then we'll find our children."_

She already knew that Phantom had gotten away. She knew he would've mentioned it if he'd captured him. He'd only had his hands on that ghost kid once, and that time…. That time, well, it had been a bit _easy_, like Phantom had _wanted_ to be caught. Of course, he'd had to make a deal with the ghost kid, giving him his freedom in exchange for help saving his family from the Wisconsin Ghost before the Fenton Portal blew, but….

It didn't matter. That was in the past. He'd really shown his true colours now, capturing the very family he'd once helped to save.

"I'll be right there," Jack said. He snapped the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket. No sense in leaving it here; Danny wasn't around to go looking for it, and it might come in handy later. Jack scrambled back into the Assault Vehicle and headed for Casper High at top speed. He and Maddie were going to do what they did best to save their family, and they had a ghost to catch.

* * *

><p>Jazz was gone. Danny still couldn't believe it. She'd been right behind him. She'd been telling him what she'd found out—which wasn't much, admittedly—and fired at him a few times to keep up appearances. Then his phone had started to ring, and he'd wanted to make sure it wasn't Tucker or Sam who had somehow gotten a hold of him, so he'd headed for the alley, as Jazz had suggested when she'd heard it, but it had turned out to be his mother, so he hadn't answered it, and….<p>

Jazz had tried to tell him he _should _answer it. "Mom will worry if you don't," she'd advised.

"She'll worry more if I do and she realizes that she's talking to Danny Phantom and not Danny Fenton," Danny had pointed out. "Besides, I'm supposed to be asleep."

Jazz had scoffed at that. "You're a lighter sleeper than you used to be, Danny. Mom's noticed."

That news hadn't been particularly comforting, and he hoped that it was just another thing his parents had chalked up to the lab accident. But he still hadn't bothered to answer the phone, and then it had finally stopped ringing. Danny had gone to pocket it, but then he'd heard the unmistakable sound of the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle, and he'd sort of dropped it, and then….

Then, he'd realized that Jazz, whom he'd been talking to not thirty seconds before, was gone.

And about two seconds after that, he'd realized that his dad thought _he_ was responsible for her disappearing act.

First Sam and Tucker, then Jazz. Was he going to lose every ally he had before this nightmare was over?

Danny finally stopped his frantic flying and settled down in the park, resting against a tree. He remembered this place; he'd come here a couple times since the accident. He liked thinking here. It was peaceful. Quiet.

Too quiet, now.

Maybe this was a dream after all. Maybe it wasn't just Desiree twisting some wish she'd granted. Or, if not a dream, it certainly had to be some form of constructed reality. There were alternate realities; surely there could be constructed ones, too, even with the Reality Gauntlet destroyed.

Heck, if he hadn't destroyed that thing himself, he'd wonder if this _was_ because of it.

Except there was no one here. There was no one gloating over what had been accomplished, laughing at the position into which Danny had been forced, plotting how to take over the city or the world or the universe or whatever now that Danny Phantom was out of the way.

When he'd been stuck in Nocturne's induced dream, it hadn't seemed like a nightmare. Actually, it had seemed too good to be true. He and Sam…. But he'd woken up when he'd had a shock, and then he'd realized how things worked, and he'd been able to wake up Tucker and Sam and Jazz, too, and then they'd been able to defeat Nocturne. But Nocturne was a powerful ghost, and Danny doubted he'd put him down for very long. Maybe this was his way of getting revenge.

Danny groaned and buried his head in his hands. He had _way_ too many enemies for a normal, fifteen-year-old kid to have.

Of course, he'd gotten most of those enemies precisely because he was the furthest thing from a normal, fifteen-year-old kid as he could possibly be, but still. If he hadn't fought the ghosts that kept invading Amity Park, they'd've been overrun long ago. His parents wouldn't have been able to fight all of them off—even with Nocturne, they'd been put to sleep like everyone else—and Valerie wouldn't have even started hunting ghosts if it hadn't been for that little misunderstanding involving him a while back. And no other ghost hunters he'd encountered had exactly been competent, let alone taken up residence in what must be the most haunted town in America.

Amity Park: a good place to live. So long as you didn't mind frequent encounters with the dead.

Danny glanced up. The sun was past its peak now. It was after lunch. Well, assuming time ran the same here as at home. Because whatever this was, it wasn't home, even if it looked like home. It was something else. He just didn't know what.

He wondered whether he'd have any luck convincing his parents that he wasn't the one behind this. He was definitely thinking Jazz was right now, which shouldn't surprise him, given that his sister was nearly always right. Whatever this was, he probably wouldn't be able to get out of this by himself. He needed help.

It would just be a lot easier to get if the only people left to give it to him weren't convinced he was evil and had gotten them stuck here in the first place.

* * *

><p>AN: All righty, then, down to the final three. That was fun, and perhaps why I finished this chapter earlier than I'd expected. Incidentally, if anyone wants to hazard any guesses about anything (what happened to Desiree, where the Infi-Map took Sam and Tucker, that sort of thing), now would be a good time. The answers begin trickling in soon. Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews.


	9. Chapter 9

"Danny?"

No response.

Jazz glanced around the alley uncertainly. He'd been here a moment ago, floating up in the air, arguing that he couldn't answer his phone, and then it had stopped ringing, and then—

Then, he'd gone invisible, or something, and she didn't know why. Maybe he'd spotted the Assault Vehicle?

But the Assault Vehicle, Jazz realized, made a different sound than the sorts of sounds she was hearing. It was louder, but a different sort of louder, and not so….

Jazz walked to the entrance of the alley and saw the cars rumbling by on what had been, not five minutes before, a completely deserted street. And people. There were people on the sidewalk, chatting, jogging, rushing past one another with shopping bags…. It was normal again.

Except the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle was nowhere in sight, and she couldn't explain its disappearance away as easily as she had Danny's.

Everyone else hadn't disappeared; they had, and she'd gotten out somehow, or been returned, or…or…something. She wasn't sure what. But wherever she'd been, Danny was still there, trapped in his ghost form, and that meant their parents—

Jazz cringed. "I'll try to figure this out quickly, Danny," she promised quietly. She tried calling him but, as she'd expected, the phone just rang and rang and rang. No answering service cut in, and Danny never picked up. They were isolated in separate worlds.

Jazz tucked her cell phone back into her pocket. Her first instinct was to go to the library, but she doubted she'd find anything there. She needed help, and to do that…. She needed to find Danny's friends. Sam and Tucker had to be here, too, didn't they? She didn't know their numbers. She'd had them in her last phone, but she'd never memorized the numbers, and after that phone had been fried last week by a stray ectoblast, she hadn't quite found the time to update her contact list; she'd only gotten her new phone a couple days ago, and what with all the ghost fighting and homework and patching up Danny without their parents noticing….

Jazz frowned. She was normally more organized than this. She didn't usually slip up on little things like this. But the truth was, she hadn't needed their numbers in the past couple of days. Danny'd had them, after all—he had Sam's and Tucker's numbers memorized—and he'd always been the one to call them if they weren't there anyway. But now, the most she could find in the phone book would be their home numbers. It was worth a shot, but she somehow doubted she'd find either one at home.

The Ghost Getters were never _supposed_ to be separated. They were supposed to fight ghosts together, not need to find each other first.

Jazz reached into her pocket again and pulled out a Fenton Phone. She always carried one with her now, and she'd told Danny, Sam, and Tucker to do the same, so if Sam and Tucker were wearing them, she might be able to get a hold of them that way. She fitted it onto her ear, turned it on, and said, rather tentatively, "This is Ghost Getter Number One, does anyone copy?"

Nothing.

Well, there was always a chance that Sam and Tuck were refusing to answer on the basis that they hated the name the Ghost Getters. It was a pretty slim chance, given the situation, but it was at least a dim sort of hope. "This is Jazz. I repeat, does anyone copy?"

The only response she got was static.

Jazz bit her lip and hoped it just meant that Sam and Tucker weren't wearing their earpieces. She was running out of ideas. She could try their houses, and the school and _her_ house, she supposed, but after that…. She didn't know. She didn't know their whereabouts anymore than she knew Danny's.

Jazz started off towards her house first. If nothing else, she could get her car so she wouldn't have to go everywhere on foot, but she rather hoped she'd run into Sam and Tucker there. There was, she figured, a better chance of them being at her place than at either of theirs. FentonWorks was built for this sort of thing. Well, not for looking for missing people, but it was built in preparation for all ghostly happenings, right down to the secret button hidden by the Emergency Ham in the fridge in the Ops Centre—the one that had gone rancid more than once and had needed to be replaced.

This would work out. She and Sam and Tucker would figure out what was going on, and they'd fix it. Danny didn't always have to be the hero. They could be, instead of just being his sidekicks. She and Sam had learned that lesson quite well when Danny had gone fishing with Jack at Lake Eerie.

But until she found Sam and Tucker, all Jazz could do was try to figure things out on her own.

* * *

><p>"Oh, butter nuts," Vlad muttered, stalking back through his portal and into his secret lab. Desiree hadn't been anywhere. Not anywhere she normally would be, at any rate, and no ghost he'd talked to had seen her. Not Skulker, not Technus, not Kitty nor Johnny 13, not Ember, not the Lunch Lady, not Dorathea, not Spectra nor Bertrand, not….<p>

The list went on, but the response had always been the same. He'd even paid a visit to the Ghostwriter. He hadn't been long out of Walker's prison, but Vlad had heard of the Christmas story in which the ghost had trapped Daniel, and he knew the power of the Ghostwriter's pen—or keyboard, as he'd taken to using that more frequently these days. He'd hoped that the Ghostwriter might do him a favour, write a line or two mentioning that he would find either Desiree or the Fentons—Vlad hadn't been picky—but the Ghostwriter had laughed.

"It's not in the script," he'd said. "Do you really want me to write you into my story? I can't always control how the story turns out."

"You control _exactly_ how the story turns out," Vlad had snapped. "That's the point."

"But a story," the Ghostwriter had countered, "will often develop a mind of its own, and then I do not control it."

"You _write_ it."

"As it should be written," the Ghostwriter had pointed out, "not necessarily as I would have written it."

That had gotten Vlad's temper up—well, more so than it had already been up—and he'd looked to see if the Ghostwriter was already writing a story, perhaps to get revenge on young Daniel for being tricked and thrown into Walker's jail, but the screen in front of the Ghostwriter had been blank.

"I just finished my last book," he'd explained. "I haven't started the next one yet."

Vlad hadn't bothered sticking around longer. The Ghostwriter didn't deserve his time. Like the rest, he wouldn't help. Perhaps the other ghosts might have reconsidered helping him with his search if he'd told them he was also searching for the young halfa, given the number of enemies Daniel had made who didn't want to see him destroyed on someone else's terms—or, in the rare case of those ghosts like Princess Dorathea, given the few ghosts who actually cared for the boy and didn't want to see him harmed. Either way, he hadn't bothered. Most of them were too afraid of the powerful halfa Vlad Plasmius to do much more than be marginally polite when they answered his questions, and he didn't want to cultivate debts that he'd have to repay later.

Vlad transformed back to Vlad Masters, shut his portal, and powered up his computer system—complete with the Maddie hologram. "Have you found what you wanted, master?" she asked gently.

"Not yet. Be a dear and run another scan for Daniel," Vlad said. "Go back through the systems; see if you can tell me where and when his trace disappeared."

"Of course, dear heart. Calculating." Vlad crossed his arms and waited, and in a moment the Maddie hologram continued, "Last known location: Casper High School. Log time: 9:43. Time recorded was that of the last scan. Next time stamp reads 10:25. No trace located on that sweep." She smiled at him again. "Shall we sit down for tea and cookies now, sweetie?"

Vlad sighed. "I can't." He should have made those sweeps regular, on a scheduled time, but he'd worried that the minute he did that, one of the ghosts from the Ghost Zone would realize that he was tracking ectoplasmic activity and find a way around the system, slipping into Amity Park and possibly wrecking havoc completely undetected by his monitors until the next scan.

Then again, most of the ghosts that bothered coming through generally wouldn't be clever enough to figure that out.

No matter. He'd start at Casper High and see if he could find any evidence of portals opening up there. He'd been working on something to detect that so he could tell when Wulf or Cujo or one of those other ghosts that forced their way into the real world turned up. Well, in truth, he wanted to try to replicate that ability; Maddie—hadn't it been Maddie? Surely it hadn't been _Jack_—had invented something that forced ghosts back into the Ghost Zone, opening up a temporary portal that pulled the ghosts in, and that was one invention of theirs he hadn't yet been able to duplicate.

It would be far faster to simply fly to the school as Plasmius, but he knew Valerie was on the prowl for ghosts and he had no wish to meet her when they both had better things to be doing. More importantly, however, was the fact that she was expecting him to do his own fair share of searching, and he had to keep up appearances. He did not need her getting suspicious.

Not that he ever expected she would. She hadn't made the connection between Danny Fenton and the ghost against which she had a vendetta, after all. With all the disappearing Daniel must be doing during his classes, Miss Gray had far more reason to become suspicious of him than of Amity Park's upstanding mayor.

"I'll be back soon, Maddie, dear," Vlad told the disappointed hologram. "You keep monitoring for anything unusual and give me a full report when I get back."

"Of course, sweetie," Maddie said, giving him a beautiful smile. "Hurry back."

The real Maddie had never looked at him that way, but he hoped that, someday, she might. And, perhaps, if he could save her, she might see what an imbecile Jack Fenton was, and….

It was probably a hopeless dream. He'd probably lost Maddie for good that fateful day in college, in the lab accident that had turned him into a half ghost. Money, or so the saying went, couldn't buy happiness. It couldn't buy everything. It couldn't lure Maddie away from Jack.

But solid ghost hunting skills might, and Vlad was certain that he had to be better at that than Jack.

Even if Jack _had_ beaten Plasmius once. But it was best not to think about that. That had been a rare demonstration for the man, and Vlad rather doubted he could repeat the performance.

Still. Even if he might never win over Maddie, he wouldn't stop trying, and he wasn't going to lose her now. He'd find her. He'd find all of them. Well, perhaps not Jack, but he'd find the rest of them, and if Jack happened to be there, well, it might be good for appearances if he were saved as well. If nothing else, he had been, for better or for worse, Vlad's greatest supporter in the election campaign. The day might come when Jack's misplaced devotion to an old college buddy would come in handy.

Unfortunately.

But unless he found them now, that day might never come. Worse yet, if he didn't find them now, he might not see Maddie again, and that thought pained him more than the repeated dismissal he invariably received when he attempted to purchase the Packers.

* * *

><p>Valerie wasn't having a lot of luck. No sign of ghosts, or ghostly activity, or—<p>

Wait a minute.

Valerie slowed, peering into the crowd, then headed for an alleyway and, to be safe, deactivated her ghost hunting gear. Dressed again as herself, she raced out into the crowd, searching for the flash of red hair she'd seen from the sky. For a moment, she didn't see anything, and she worried that she'd imagined it, but then—_there_.

"Jazz!" Valerie shouted, running again. "Hey! Jazz!"

The redhead glanced over her shoulder, and it _was_ Jazz, it _was_, but how did—? "Valerie?" she asked, looking surprised as she stopped and waited for her to catch up. "Where did you come from?"

"More importantly," Valerie said, catching her breath, "where did _you_ come from?"

"I don't know," Jazz said quietly. "Do you know what happened?"

Valerie shook her head. "No. Well, sort of. Tucker told me all the Fentons had disappeared and that Danny wasn't answering his phone."

"Danny couldn't get a hold of anyone, either," Jazz said. "I don't know how many times he tried Sam and Tucker, and I know he tried you a few times, too."

"So you guys are okay?"

"Well, I am," Jazz said, looking uneasy. "Look, Valerie, I don't know what happened. We were all still in Amity Park, but it was empty. It looked the same, just as if everyone else had, well, vanished. Except we were the ones who had vanished, I suppose."

"So you weren't being attacked or anything?"

Jazz shook her head. "If we were, we might have an idea of who was behind this. I don't know if whoever it was let me go, or if I just somehow managed to escape, or what. I was talking to Danny, and Dad was just around the corner, and then, suddenly, I…just sort of found myself back here." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Back a ways, really, in the same alley I'd been in with Danny when we were looking for clues."

"Well, maybe if they're trying to get out and we're trying to get them out," Valerie reasoned, "we'll actually make it work, even if we don't really know what's going on. Where were you going?"

"Home," Jazz answered honestly. "I thought it might be the best place to start."

"I'll come with you," Valerie said, "and we'll see if Sam and Tucker have found anything."

Jazz smiled. "Sounds good. Then we can do some brainstorming and work this out. Thanks, Valerie. You're a good friend. Danny's lucky to have you and Sam and Tucker to count on."

Valerie smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm a better friend than I used to be, and I'm glad for that. It's nice to have some real friends. Hard times just let you know who your friends really are. C'mon, we better get going. It's nearly lunch."

"Nearly lunch?" Jazz repeated, instinctively looking skyward. "I thought it had past. I thought I'd just missed it with everything that was happening. It wouldn't be the first time."

Valerie shook her head. "Not yet. We can grab something at your house." At Jazz's expression, Valerie added, "If there's anything edible left." She'd heard enough stories from Danny during the time they'd been dating to know that having inventors as parents had a few downsides.

"I'm not sure," Jazz said, "but I suppose if all else fails, there's Dad's emergency stock of fudge, but—"

"That'll do until we have time for a proper meal," Valerie cut in. "It'll give us a bit of energy." Jazz still looked uncertain, so Valerie changed the subject, instead fishing for information. "What exactly were things like, where you were?" she asked. And Jazz, as methodical and detailed as Danny had said during one of the many times he'd complained about his annoying know-it-all of a sister, did precisely what Valerie had expected: she answered the question and was forced to focus on the little things so that she would forget, just for a moment, how bad things might really be.

It wasn't much, but Valerie couldn't do much else. She didn't know Jazz as well as Sam and Tucker, and she knew they'd all need to work together to figure things out. If they could at least get all their information together, someone might see something someone else had missed, and then they might be able to figure this out.

Isn't that how things were supposed to work?

* * *

><p>"This looks…really familiar," Tucker said slowly.<p>

"It should," Sam said, waving a hand around her at all of the moving gears. "We're in Clockwork's tower." She glanced at Frostbite, who had shifted uneasily on his feet. "Has the map ever taken you to the wrong place?"

Frostbite shook his head firmly. "It takes you wherever you want to go."

"But Danny's not here," Tucker said. "He can't be. Clockwork probably would've interfered by now if he was, and we'd know, and we'd either have him back or be with him trying to sort this mess out."

"Danny's not here," Sam said quietly, "but Dan is." They'd long ago agreed on that name for Danny's evil, future self from an alternate timeline.

"Who is Dan?" Frostbite asked, perhaps hearing the note of fear that had crept into Sam's voice.

"It's a long story. He's no one good." Sam glanced around. "Where is Clockwork, anyway?"

"I am right here," a voice behind them said. The three spun around and faced the figure of a young ghost, a mere child. When the voice continued, however, the figure shifted to that of an old ghost, with a beard falling nearly to his feet, but the voice itself never changed. Clockwork, the Master of Time, the ghost with a pendulum clock counting seconds at his very core, looked at the Infi-Map in Frostbite's hand. "And you are here because you needed to be here, I suppose." Sam couldn't tell if it was exasperation or resignation or what colouring the ghost's voice, but she thought she could detect something out of the ordinary.

"We're looking for Danny," Tucker said.

Clockwork raised one eyebrow and looked pointedly at Frostbite. "I am here to assist them in their search for the Great One," he said resolutely.

"You are here because you are the guardian of the map," Clockwork corrected. Frostbite looked like he was going to protest, but Clockwork continued on, his form shifting again to that of an adult ghost, and said, "You do not know the child you idolize. You mean well, but you cannot help him this time. Return to the Far Frozen, and prepare the vehicle these two arrived in for its return. They will find their way back to you in no time at all."

"Um, well, we could really use the help," Sam said. "I mean, Danny doesn't have a lot of friends."

"Danny Phantom," Clockwork said, very precisely, "cannot be helped by his friends."

Tucker frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I will explain what is necessary in time," Clockwork replied. He turned back to Frostbite. "Return to your people," he repeated, and this time, Frostbite consented. A few seconds later—was it just seconds?—the Infi-Map had pulled him away, back to the Far Frozen.

"Okay," Sam said, crossing her arms, "what's going on?" She spied a few of Clockwork's special medallions and, when he didn't answer her immediately, made a dash for them.

"That is not necessary," he said, but she still put one on and tossed another to Tucker.

"Call it insurance," Sam said.

A smile flickered across Clockwork's scarred face. "You do not trust me."

"We wanted to find Danny, and the best the Infi-Map could do was bring us to Dan," Sam pointed out. "That's not exactly comforting, and you aren't answering our questions, and this is usually the point where you freeze time or something."

"Dan Phantom is still contained," Clockwork said. "You were not brought here because of him." The ever-shifting ghost, a child again, floated towards a portal and gestured at it with his staff. In it, they could see a crowd of one-eyed ghosts in some sort of court, but at present, the ghost on trial—if it _was_ a court, anyway—was obscured by a containment cell. Or whatever it was. "The Observants informed me that a law was broken in Amity Park, and I apprehended the offender. I am—"

"Hold on, someone broke a law? Isn't that Walker's jurisdiction?' Tucker asked.

"Must you interrupt?" Clockwork said, casting him a definite stern glance. "You have already learned that the infamous Infi-Map sometimes takes people where they need to go. You are needed here so that you can learn what happened."

"So why don't you just tell us?" Tucker asked.

"I am trying." Clockwork drew their attention back to the portal, saying, "Time is not to be meddled in. It—"

"But don't you do that all the time?" Tucker cut in.

An elderly Clockwork glared at him. "I understand it, and I am charged with certain tasks. I will do what is necessary to make sure what must come to pass does or what must not does not. The law which was broken—"

"Hold on," Sam said suddenly, watching the portal intently, "that's Desiree!" The view had zoomed in on the containment cell, showing the wishing ghost floating within. "So this all was her fault? Danny's disappearance?"

"It was not a disappearance," Clockwork corrected, his form shifting again to one of an adult.

"Then why can't we find him?" Tucker said. "I mean, the Booo-merang didn't key into him, and it's locked onto his ecto-signature."

"The wishing ghost," Clockwork replied, "drew on the old magic for her spell. It is not meant to be confined. It created room for itself to spread."

Sam glanced at Tucker and saw he wasn't making any more sense of things than she was. "What do you mean, 'old magic'?" she asked. "Desiree's just got some sort of ghostly power to grant wishes, doesn't she?"

"The old magic," Clockwork explained, "is a wild magic, and it is the magic that gave her her powers. It is the reason she is a wishing ghost. Wishing ghosts are not created without it. It becomes a part of them. But Desiree found a trace of it in your world, and she used it. She now faces the consequences."

"Okay," Sam said, figuring she'd better not bother questioning the whole 'magic' thing. Ghosts were real, after all, and Desiree did have a sort of magic. Kind of. "So Desiree's spell went wrong. But that doesn't explain why we can't find Danny. Do you know where he is?"

"He is where you left him," Clockwork answered. "Perhaps not precisely, but he is in the same place. I presume that that is Amity Park."

"But Danny's not—" Tucker cut off abruptly when Sam elbowed him, and he rubbed his stomach, glaring at her.

"You said we couldn't help Danny," Sam said, ignoring Tucker. "You said he couldn't be helped by his friends. Why?"

"The spell must run its course. You cannot change that."

"Okay, so how long is that going to be?"

"It will not be over until the wish is granted," Clockwork said.

"What wish?" Tucker asked immediately.

Clockwork, in a child's form, continued on as if he hadn't heard him. "There are bridges," he said, "between your world, your reality, and the realm created by the spell. It—"

"Danny's stuck in another reality?" Sam cut in, shocked.

"But the Box Ghost said he was in the Ghost Zone," Tucker countered.

Clockwork turned to him. "Did he?"

"Well," Tucker amended, "he said Danny was in the other place."

"So the Box Ghost was there, too," Sam realized.

"So how come he got out and Danny can't? The Box Ghost was stuck in a thermos."

"The Box Ghost," Clockwork said hesitantly, "has a certain knack for getting out of places. He is very good at finding the weak points in the skin between the realms and breaking through. The thermos acted as a bridge, and as such, the Box Ghost was able to cross it. But the bridges," Clockwork added, seeing Sam open her mouth, "are unstable, and may only last for a few seconds. There is no predicting where they will appear; you will not be able to cross one into the other place any more than young Danny Phantom will be able to cross back to his own reality before it is time."

"But, maybe, if we're lucky—"

Clockwork shook his head, effectively cutting Sam off. "You cannot cross over twice. The magic is thin and will not sustain it. You would tear reality open and it would collapse around you. I do not have time to repair that."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Sam asked, shifting on her feet, deciding not to question why the Master of Time wouldn't have time to do something. She probably wouldn't really understand the explanation anyway.

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "I mean, if we can't help Danny, and we can't end the spell or whatever, what's the point? Are you going to send us back to before the wish was granted so we can stop it?"

Clockwork sighed and closed his eyes. "You cannot always fix the future by changing the past. You often do more damage than you realize."

"But that's what you did with Danny, isn't it? Because you were supposed to prevent the future where he killed everyone?"

Clockwork opened his eyes again. "It was not supposed to happen. We could not allow it to happen. Now it does not. This is not the same." He opened another portal with his staff, and it showed Casper High. "Go, and help your friend."

"So you _are_ letting us go back?" Tucker asked.

"It will take you back to the current time," Clockwork said.

"Then how are we supposed to help?" Sam asked. "You just said we couldn't."

"No. But from what I've seen, the three of you do not always follow the rules." Clockwork reached out and Sam and Tucker found the time medallions lifting themselves off their necks and floating to Clockwork's outstretched hand. "Good luck."

Sam and Tucker looked at Clockwork, then at each other, and after a few seconds of silent communication, they jumped through the portal.

* * *

><p>AN: I'm sure some of you were hoping I'd actually check in on Danny in this chapter, but I'm afraid that just wasn't possible; he didn't have any of the answers. *whistles innocently* Thanks again to everyone who reviews/favourites/etc.

And to whomever left that nice, long, unsigned review with all the guesses (apologies if I should know who you are): I do wish I could have been able to reply to you, but suffice to say in regards to your last point that I will most definitely address that once the thought crosses Danny's mind, which just so happens to be in the next chapter.


	10. Chapter 10

Maddie was pacing around the auditorium by the time Jack finally made it back to Casper High. When he entered, she stopped and looked at him for a moment. To know that their own children had been _stolen_ by Phantom, whisked away without a trace, and they couldn't….

Jack seemed to read Maddie's mind. "We'll find them, Mads," he said gently, repeating his earlier words. "We'll find them."

"We have to find Phantom first," she replied quietly. "I've packed up a few necessities." She waved a hand in the direction of a large pile of weaponry. "We'll go after Phantom together. The fact that he's evaded us for this long means that he is clever, for a ghost. I don't want to give him any more opportunities to prey on us separately."

"Don't worry, Maddie. By the time we're through with him, he'll wish he'd never been born." Jack blinked and realized what he'd just said. "Er, make that died and become a ghost."

It got a smile from Maddie, though it felt like a rather weak one. "Just remember," she said, "we need to capture him. We can't just blast him to bits. We need information."

"I'll rip him apart molecule by molecule _after_ he tells us where he's taken the kids," Jack promised, "and after we find them and they're back with us." He started double checking the pile of weapons she'd selected to take with them. "Didn't you pack the Ecto-Entrapper?" he asked.

"We haven't worked out all the kinks yet, honey," Maddie reminded him gently. "It's not reliable yet."

"But it'll give us the element of surprise!" Jack countered, sounding for all the world like a little kid determined to get his way.

Maddie wanted to argue. It wasn't tested—not properly, at least; she'd rather they try it against something more than just that Box Ghost, to see if they could replicate its effects, or even just to determine what other effects it might have. And as long as they didn't know all of its effects, whether it was the same for every ghost or different, whether they could expand its range or increase its strength…. With so much they _didn't_ know, the Ecto-Entrapper could be more of a hindrance than a help.

But Jack just looked at her, pleading, and she had to relent. "All right," she agreed, "but we only bring it out if we need to." And if they played their cards right, they wouldn't need to. Besides using the Fenton Thermos, they could capture Phantom in one of the phase-proof nets they'd come up with, or suck him into the Fenton Xtractor or the Fenton Ghost Weasel, or grab him with the Ghost Gloves, or at the very least, hit him with enough goo that he got plastered to a wall until they caught up with him. They had plenty of options.

Of course, they usually did have plenty of options, and Phantom generally managed to evade them—or get free—one way or another.

But not this time. There was too much at stake this time. Neither she nor Jack was going to slip up; they couldn't afford it. They might just have one shot; they might not get lucky enough for two. And if they did just have one shot, it was going to be a good one. They weren't going to waste it. They were going to catch that piece of ectoplasmic scum and find out what had happened to their children.

"Let's go," Maddie said, picking up her part of the equipment. "We don't know how much time we have."

* * *

><p>Danny knew he had to keep moving. He didn't really want his parents to find him before he found them. Now wasn't exactly the time to get caught by surprise, as the chance of help coming if they managed to strap him to a table in the lab in the basement of FentonWorks was really, really small. No Sam and Tucker to notice he was missing, no Jazz to come home, hear of their parents' exploits, and sneak down to free him. And, well, no one else, either, but he highly doubted anyone else would help. The only other person in the human world who was around and who knew he was both Fenton and Phantom was Vlad, and Vlad wouldn't help him if he was strapped to a table. He'd just use that to his advantage.<p>

Now was definitely turning out to be one of those times when he was finding it hard to look on the bright side of becoming a half ghost, though sometimes it was hard to find a bright side to being half dead in the first place.

Danny sighed. What he needed to do felt impossible. How the heck was he supposed to convince his parents, who hated Phantom and probably wouldn't let him get two words out before trying to blast him out of the air, that he wasn't responsible for this? That he needed their help? That they might be stuck here unless they actually worked together?

Actually, it may not be as bad as it could be. He'd made a deal with his dad once. He'd let himself get captured, and then Jack Fenton had agreed to release him if he helped to save his family once he found out that Plasmius was after the Fenton Portal. Granted, Jack hadn't known that Danny would've done that anyway, since Vlad was just one seriously crazed-up fruit loop with a million stupid schemes that he pulled for downright creepy reasons, at least in Danny's opinion, but the point was, they'd worked together once. Maybe it wasn't so much of a stretch to think that they could do it again.

He should probably try to find his dad and remind him of that time before his mom got on the scene. Not that Jack didn't shoot first and ask questions later—both his parents shared that policy—but he'd have a better chance with his dad. Providing he could get him to listen in the first place, that is. Jack still thought he'd taken Jazz, but the truth was, he didn't know what had happened to her. He could only hope that she'd ended up with everyone else, providing that everyone else was where they should be.

Danny flew cautiously through the streets of Amity Park. The city was like a ghost town, except that he was the only ghost. It was just…empty. Dead. And far, far more quiet than it should be. Danny shivered. Definitely creepy. It was still daylight, but that almost made it worse. It was supposed to be bustling now, and all he could hear was….

Well, if he stopped flying and really listened, he could just hear himself. No wind, so no rustling trees or anything, and no birds or crickets or anything else, no faint trickle of water, no familiar rumbling of vehicles…. At least that meant his parents hadn't gotten into the Assault Vehicle and were looking for him.

Or they had been in it, had found him, and had killed the engine before he'd noticed and were tracking him on foot.

The thought got Danny moving again. He really, really, _really_ did not want to be caught off his guard. He had to find his parents first, not the other way around. The chances of him being able to reason with them were slim. If they got him first, any sliver of a chance he might have had would probably dissipate. Judging from the conclusions his father had jumped to when Jazz had disappeared, they wouldn't exactly be willing to negotiate anything. They'd be too busy asking questions he didn't know the answers to, and then, when he told them he didn't know anything, they'd just say he was a lying piece of ectoplasmic scum, and the torture would probably begin, because by that point they'd have him somewhere he couldn't get out of.

Frankly, he'd rather be stuck in the Fenton Thermos or the Fenton Weasel, where they couldn't get at him to run any experiments or other little tests, than in a cage or on a table, which were unfortunately the more likely options. Actually, he'd rather not get caught at all, because if he was, then he couldn't do anything to get them out of here, wherever here was. Not that he was really getting the impression that he could get them out of here, but still. He had a better shot if he had freedom. If only he could just find some answers, then maybe—

Danny skidded to a halt. "Oh, man," he groaned, smacking his forehead as the obvious solution finally crossed his mind. "No wonder I'm a C student." He'd kept thinking he was stuck here, on his own, without any help whatsoever. But he wasn't. He was a ghost. He could just go into the Ghost Zone, get some help, and then come back and sort this out. Easy.

He should've thought of that ages ago.

Danny zoomed upward to get a better view of the city, got his bearings, and headed straight for FentonWorks. Even if no one else knew what was happening, Clockwork had to know what was going on. Clockwork knew everything. He saw time all at once, past, present, and future in some sort of continuous mesh layered upon itself, not with everything neatly laid out in a straight line like everyone else. Or if it was all in a straight line, Clockwork viewed it from above, unlike everyone else who just saw it from their place in line. Danny wasn't sure how it worked, really, since he highly doubted Clockwork just sat around watching portals all day, but it was probably some sort of powerful, ghostly time sense which, as far as he knew, was unique to Clockwork.

Whatever the reason, Clockwork could help him now. He could explain what was going on, and he could tell Danny how to fix things, or send him back in time to prevent whatever this was from happening, or something. Well, probably not send him back to prevent this. Danny had learned the hard way that that didn't really work. It was way too easy to screw up the present instead of fix it. But Clockwork could explain things, at least, and then Danny could work things out for himself. He just needed to know who he was up against and what was going on, and then he could figure out how to fight back.

It didn't take him long to get to the lab and activate the portal. Even as a ghost, he had enough Fenton DNA that opening the Fenton Portal wasn't a problem. Or maybe it was because he was a half ghost. Or maybe ghosts actually had DNA, or at least the ones who had once been alive did. He didn't really know. Whatever the reason, he'd never needed to be in his human form to open the portal, and for that, he was grateful. He'd never exactly memorized the override code.

He was also grateful that no ghosts came through the moment the doors opened. Really, sometimes, he'd swear they were just waiting for the thing to open…. But if they did, they weren't now.

For a split second, the possibility occurred to him that this weird absence of life extended to the realm of the dead. Maybe no ghosts had come through because there weren't any to come through. Maybe they'd been split off, too, like the rest of the population of Amity Park.

Maybe it wasn't just Amity Park. Maybe it was the entire world, and the entire Ghost Zone, and—

Nah, couldn't be. That'd take way too much power. He didn't know any ghosts who could swing that, not by themselves. And, well, he wasn't entirely sure most of them could work together too well. None of the really powerful ones, anyway, since they all seemed to have a superiority complex. Sure, the ghosts had swallowed their pride and worked together when the Guys in White were trying to blast the Ghost Zone to pieces, but that had just been for a short time and probably entirely out of a sense of self-preservation. Anything long term was out of the question.

Well, he couldn't exactly forget Skulktech 9.9 from that alternate timeline, but weird as that had been, it still didn't count. Okay, so Skulker and Technus had merged, but they'd kept their minds separate, and while they'd managed to work together, Danny couldn't help but wonder how many times they'd had to rebuild themselves. Or whether it had turned out to be much of an improvement. Technus 2.0, for instance, hadn't had much up on the original Technus. All right, fine, Skulktech 9.9 had put up a good fight, considering what Danny was used to, but he probably could've beaten them if he'd been slightly less shocked by the whole existence of Skulktech in the first place.

Still, point was, Technus and Skulker might have managed to merge into Skulktech, but they weren't exactly on the high end of the power scale of the ghosts Danny'd fought. He'd fought them time and again when they were separate, and he'd won. Sometimes he had a little help, but he still won.

He'd beaten Pariah Dark, the Ghost King, and, albeit initially separately, his lackey, the Fright Knight. He'd beaten _himself_, his evil, future, deranged self. He'd beaten Nocturne, and Undergrowth, and Vortex. He'd beaten Vlad. He'd beaten loads of ghosts. He could beat whoever was behind this, too.

Once he found out exactly who it was, at least. Desiree or Nocturne or some other ghost he didn't know about yet….

The sooner he found out, the better. He just hoped Clockwork would actually tell him. The Ghost of Time was rather fond of riddles, and Danny was in no mood for them. He wanted to leave behind this nightmare, or whatever it was, sooner rather than later.

Danny cast one quick glance behind him, making sure he hadn't left anything out of place in case his parents came here for more weapons and realized they'd missed their company, namely him. Any reunion on those terms wouldn't be the greatest for him. But, thankfully, everything was in the same sort of mess as it had been when he'd come down. He hadn't knocked any papers out of place when he'd flown in or anything. So, smiling a bit for the first time since he'd realized exactly how serious this mess was, Danny took to the air and flew through the Fenton Ghost Portal, into the bright emerald light of the Ghost Zone.

* * *

><p>Jack and Maddie had finally come in range of Phantom. They'd picked up his ecto-signature and were heading, of all places, back to FentonWorks. It seemed ludicrous that a ghost would go there, of all places, but Jack figured he knew why. That evil ghost had been nicking their inventions for ages. He'd seen Phantom with a Fenton Thermos, and he probably had an idea of how their other weapons worked, too, which is why he seemed to be so good at avoiding them.<p>

If it didn't take so much power, he'd run the Fenton Ghost Shield around their house the whole time. That would teach that ghost for breaking into his home. But continuously running the ghost shield would only drain their power reserves, and if they ever needed to expand the shield to protect the town again, it probably wouldn't hold as long. He still needed to tweak the system, get a few more of the glitches out of it, but with all the other inventions he was working on, he hadn't yet found the time.

"Jack," Maddie asked suddenly, staring intently at the screen that proclaimed Phantom's location, "the Ghost Portal's closed, isn't it?"

Jack nodded. "He won't be able to get through there. The only way he's getting away from us is through a natural portal."

Maddie frowned. "Then one opened up in our lab. Jack, he's g—"

"Gone?" Jack supplied when Maddie cut off.

Maddie leaned in to peer at the screen. "No, we just lost him for a second. The screen must have glitched. He's still there. We'd better hurry."

"I'm on it, baby," Jack assured her, pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The Assault Vehicle careened around the corner, tipping wildly to one side for a few terrifying seconds before settling back on all its wheels.

They arrived at FentonWorks within two minutes, and in that time, Maddie had informed Jack that the screen had flickered no fewer than five times. "We'll have to check the receiver," she told him quietly as he screeched to a halt in front of their house. Jack nodded, distracted, already gathering weapons to use on that no-good piece of ectoplasmic filth that was in their house and, in all likelihood, in their lab.

They'd make sure he never went there willingly again.

Jack primed a few ectoguns, and Maddie had the Jack-o'-Nine-Tails at the ready, along with a Wraith Wrangler and the improved (now phase-proof) Fenton Grappler. Both had Fenton Thermoses, of course, and they had a Fenton Weasel in the lab, along with a number of other weapons, so Phantom's chances of escape were considerably slimmer than they might have been if he'd chosen to hole up anywhere else.

But why pick FentonWorks if he couldn't activate the Ghost Portal? That's what really didn't make sense.

Then again, ghosts didn't make a lot of sense. They didn't act on logic. They acted on some sort of twisted sense of instinct. An evil instinct.

Maddie had the door open already and, after thoroughly reminding Jack how much they needed to the element of surprise, they entered. Jack suppressed the urge to yell at the ghost as they started down to the lab. Maddie was right. They had to surprise it. It was the only way they'd get the kids back.

And Jack Fenton was never going to let a ghost steal his kids—Fentons, future ghost hunters!—and get away with it. Never.

* * *

><p>Danny hovered in the lab, trying to figure out what had happened. He'd flown through the Ghost Portal, but instead of ending up in the Ghost Zone, he'd come out into the lab in FentonWorks.<p>

Five times.

It wasn't instantaneous, exactly. He couldn't stick an arm into the greenish haze of the Ghost Zone and have it come out back in lab. That would've been really weird, and frankly he was sort of glad it didn't work like that, but it really limited the options regarding what it meant. And he wasn't really sure what it meant beyond the fact that he couldn't get into the Ghost Zone. It was looped or something. The minute he got fully into it, but before he could even pick out any of the familiar purple doors that should be floating on the other side, just visible from the Fenton Ghost Portal, he found himself flying back into the lab.

He'd tried a few things before coming to that conclusion, of course. The second time, he'd just flown in like the first, weakly hoping that he'd just somehow gotten turned around or something. The third time, he'd closed the portal and opened it again, hoping that would fix whatever weird thing had gone wrong, before he flew through it. The fourth time, he'd just tried walking through rather than flying through. The fifth time, he'd closed his eyes, begged for this to be some sort of weird dream, and took off running.

He'd opened his eyes again when he'd crashed into a table, broken a few beakers, and spilled a bit of glowing gloop. Luckily, whatever that stuff had been didn't have any effect on him, so it was a failed experiment. Probably a precursor to whatever his dad had put into the Ecto-Entrapper. That stuff might have a small effect, but he doubted it would do much to slow down a ghost more powerful than the Box Ghost.

If he was going to get some good luck, though, Jack Fenton might just admit that it didn't work and go back to the drawing board. He was pretty sure his mom did that. Well, that, or there was some other reason that they'd gotten some really oddly shaped dishes turning up in the cupboards, but he couldn't think of one.

Danny, who had been picking up the pieces of broken glass to try to cover his tracks, froze when he heard a floorboard above him creak.

"Crud," he whispered, hearing footsteps start down the stairs. There wasn't time to finish cleaning up, but it didn't matter. His parents already knew he was here. Turning intangible, Danny shot straight up, phasing through the ceiling as his parents reached the bottom of the stairs. He didn't want to go too far, since he thought figuring out why he couldn't get into the Ghost Zone would help explain what had actually happened, and while he didn't have Jazz's intelligence, it couldn't take him that long, could it?

"He was here, Maddie!" came Jack's voice. "GHOST!" he hollered. "Get back here so I can—"

"_Jack_!" Maddie's voice cut across her husband's. "Remember what we discussed?"

Oh, great. They were discussing things. Planning things. Probably how to dissect him once they caught him. He was doomed.

Before he moved away, however, he heard his parents putting down a few of their weapons, but he guessed that that was simply to examine the damage he'd done to the lab. Then, he heard the sound of breaking glass. That didn't really worry him, either. His first thought was simply that one of his parents—okay, that his dad—had knocked something over. It wasn't exactly a rare occurrence.

But then the alarms started blaring.

"_FentonWorks Anti-Creep Mode activated,"_ Jack Fenton's recorded voice exclaimed. _"Our special today is fudge! I mean, pain!"_

Instantly, weapons sprang out of the walls and pointed at Danny.

"Aw, crud."

* * *

><p>Jack dug the last ectogun out of his pocket and dropped it, knowing any ecto-powered weapons he carried would be targeted. Maddie had done the same when she'd seen him jerk his head toward the wall where the button to activate the security system was hidden. She'd been carrying fewer than him, given that things like the Wraith Wrangler didn't rely on ecto-energy and hence wouldn't be targeted.<p>

With none of the ecto-weapons in the lab primed and active, none of the weapons in the walls sprang out to target them. Upstairs, however, seemed to be a different matter, judging by the sounds they heard. Phantom, as Jack had suspected, hadn't left the premises yet.

He had a Fenton Fisher with him now, and a Fenton Weasel. He'd caught that evil ghost in one of them before, and if he hadn't had to let it out, this wouldn't've happened. He regretted that move now. _Never trust a ghost_. He knew that, but he had. The ghost had helped him…that time. But now, well, now it just proved that he should've seen that action for what it was: an attempt to lure him into a false sense of security.

No one harmed his family when Jack Fenton was around. Especially not a ghost.

The kitchen, when they reached it, showed clear evidence that Phantom had been here. The ghost must've phased through some of the claws meant to trap the intruders; hadn't they coated that equipment, either? He'd thought they'd gone over everything once they'd found a substance that ghosts couldn't simply pass through.

Clearly, that hadn't been the case.

A yelp from the living room caught their attention. Maddie reached it first, but Jack wasn't far behind. There was Phantom, desperately trying to dodge the blasts aimed at him, and struggling to get his leg out of one of the claws that had managed to grasp him. Apparently, they had remembered to coat some of those things with the right stuff, so no ghost could phase through it, much like they couldn't phase through the walls of the Fenton Thermos or the string of the Fenton Fisher.

Phantom's eyes widened when he spotted them. "No, wait," he said quickly as Jack powered up the Fenton Weasel. "You don't understand!"

"Oh, we understand all right, ghost," he replied. "We understand that you're up to something."

"But I'm _not_," Phantom insisted, ducking so a blast sailed over his head and scorched the wall behind him. "Um, contrary to all appearances, that is."

Maddie laughed. "You can't fool us, ghost. You're no different from the rest of them. You're just finally showing your true colours again."

Phantom looked panicked, but he still didn't try to fight back. He didn't fight them, anyway. It looked like he'd done a number on the claw holding his leg and, judging by the state of his suit, he hadn't spent all of his time trying to go intangible or put up shields, either. It was just as well. It could be a sign of him weakening. Even if he had tried fighting them, they would be well protected by their security system. They'd gone to a lot of trouble designing it, and it was good to know it paid off.

And so, while Phantom was distracted by Maddie's words, Jack activated the Fenton Weasel, and the ghost was contained before he'd even realized what had happened. The house's weapons retracted in the absence of a threat, and the world was, once again, quiet. Jack looked at Maddie, who had been gazing at the state of their house.

"We'll clean up after," she said. "Let's get this ghost down to the lab."

* * *

><p>AN: Aren't I sweet? Thanks to everyone who has been taking the time to review!


	11. Chapter 11

Nothing. There was nothing here. Nothing out of the ordinary, at any rate. Not that Vlad Masters dealt with the ordinary very often anymore, but he knew it when he saw it. Casper High was completely devoid of clues as to the Fentons' disappearance. No signs within, no signs without.

"Oh, fudge buckets," Vlad muttered. This was turning out to be as fruitful as his search for Desiree.

"Oof! I don't know if I'll ever really get used to that."

Vlad spun around to see none other than Daniel's two friends, Sam and Tucker. They were climbing to their feet, scrapping a few pieces of grass off their clothes. He raised his eyebrows; they had not been there five seconds before. "Get used to what, exactly?" he asked.

Sam cringed but didn't answer him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, sounding sour as usual.

"Valerie told me young Daniel was missing," Vlad replied easily. No need to mention he knew about the rest of the Fentons; that would only give them an opening for teasing him, and he had had quite enough of all their juvenile pokes and prods into his affairs.

Sam, to his surprise, hit Tucker, who yelped and rubbed his arm. "What was that for?"

"Telling Valerie," Sam ground out. "We might've been able to use her help, but we're sure not going to be using _his_."

"Oh, please, do talk about me as if I'm not here," Vlad said dryly. When they continued to do so, he cut in again. "I would suggest that you tell me what you know," he said, "or we might miss our opportunity to get Daniel back."

"We don't need _your_ help," Sam snapped. "You can't help Danny any more than we can."

"And why would you say that?" It wasn't like the girl to admit that neither she nor Tucker were much of a help, either, though he couldn't say he hadn't expected her to balk at the idea of accepting his help.

"Because Danny—" Sam broke off. She glanced at Tucker, then back at Vlad, and he wasn't entirely sure he liked the gleam in her eye. "Maybe you _can_ help," she said slowly.

That couldn't be good. Vlad hardly expected the girl to change her tune so quickly. "Then tell me what you know."

"Danny can't be helped by his friends," Tucker said, "and I think it's safe to say you qualify as an enemy."

"I beg your pardon?" Where exactly had they gotten the idea that Daniel couldn't be helped by his friends, of all people? That was precisely who _could_ help him; they were the only ones who knew his secret, after all, and had a desire to help the child. And, while he did have his days where he couldn't blame Daniel for considering him an enemy, he really wasn't. He didn't want to destroy him. He wanted to work with him. All right, yes, he'd tried to clone him because he'd refused so often, but the point still stood. If Daniel would just agree to renounce his father and to—

"You're his enemy," Tucker repeated.

Sam was nodding. "You have to find the Box Ghost," she said.

"Oh, not that insufferable—"

"He's the only one who knows anything," Sam interrupted. "He's been there, wherever Danny is. Come on, Vlad. If you want to see Danny again, or his…mom, then you've got to find the Box Ghost."

Vlad ignored Sam's shudder as she mentioned Maddie. He didn't need the approval of children to pine after his college sweetheart. "And why must I be the one to find the Box Ghost?" He couldn't really say he'd ever had a tolerance for that particular ghost.

"Because all the ghosts are scared of Plasmius," Tucker answered. "You're the only one who might get anything out of him. He'd just threaten to throw boxes at us and tell us to beware him and all the cardboard at his disposal."

Vlad crossed his arms. "Very well," he said bitterly, "but at least do me the courtesy of telling me where you two came from. You certainly weren't here earlier."

"Uh…." Tucker glanced at Sam, who reached into her pocket to pull out her phone.

"We don't have time," Sam said. "We need to talk to Valerie. Meet us after you talk to the Box Ghost. You'll know where to find us!" She grabbed Tucker's arm and started pulling him away, dialling the cell phone with her free hand.

Vlad watched them go. It wouldn't do any good to protest, to argue. He did suspect where they'd be gathering, after all. FentonWorks was easily accessible and, no doubt, equipped with anything they might need. He wasn't impressed that he was the one who had been tasked with seeking out the Box Ghost, but Sam and Tucker both brought up good points: the other ghosts were afraid of him, and if he didn't get any information out of that annoyance of a ghost, he might not see Maddie again.

As much as he wasn't impressed with the fact that he was listening to a bunch of insolent teens, he didn't want to risk losing Maddie forever. Losing her to Jack Fenton had been painful enough. Losing her for good…. It didn't bear thinking about.

With a sigh, Vlad stalked back into the school. It was empty, and he wasn't about to let the people of Amity Park know that their mayor was half ghost. Vlad shifted into his ghost form and then set off in search of the Box Ghost.

In times like these, it was best to get the annoyances dealt with quickly and efficiently.

* * *

><p>"Meet us at FentonWorks," Sam said when Valerie answered the phone. "Tucker and I found something."<p>

"_So did I,"_ Valerie said. _"I found Jazz. We're already at FentonWorks."_

"You _what_?"

"_I'm with Jazz. Here, I'll pass you over."_

There was a bit of shuffling, then, unmistakably, Jazz's voice. _"Hello."_

"Jazz? Where were you? Where's everyone else? How did you get away?"

"_I don't really know. I'll explain when you get here; I don't want to keep repeating myself."_

"Jazz is there?" Tucker asked. "How?"

Sam shrugged and waved him off. "Okay. We'll be there in ten." She snapped the phone shut and looked at Tucker. "C'mon. Jazz can tell us what she knows. It's probably not much, but she'll have a few theories. She always does."

"Aren't you going to tell them what Clockwork said?"

"Yeah, but without telling Valerie we got help from a ghost." Sam looked around for a moment, seeking inspiration but not finding it. "We'll come up with some reason that we found it out. We always do."

* * *

><p>"Sam said they'll be here in about ten minutes," Jazz said, handing the phone back to Valerie.<p>

Valerie nodded and pocketed the phone. "Sounds good. Have you figured out what you're going to say?"

"Not really," Jazz admitted. "I don't know what I can say beyond relating my experiences. There was no sign of any particular ghost, if it even was a ghost."

Valerie nodded; Jazz had told her this before. "It is a ghost," she said. "I even know who it is: Desiree, the wishing ghost."

Jazz shot her a surprised look, and Valerie hoped that knowing the ghost by name hadn't blown her cover. Sure, her dad had figured out who she was, when Phantom had unmasked her, but she didn't think anyone else had. True, she hadn't been as careful with Tucker, earlier, but she'd been surprised, and he'd been distracted, and, well, he hadn't commented on it, so hopefully he hadn't caught her slip.

Then again, knowing the ghosts by name was becoming less of a mark for her being a ghost hunter. A bunch of kids in school were trying to learn their names since Paulina had decided that knowing a bit more about ghosts might help her catch Phantom's eye.

Valerie gritted her teeth. Stupid Phantom, fooling all those people…. He was the reason the Fentons were in this mess just as much as she was. If he wasn't so…so…_something_, then she wouldn't've made the wish, and Desiree wouldn't've been able to twist her words, and then Danny and his parents wouldn't be stuck wherever, and then she wouldn't need to—

"That's what Danny and I thought, too," Jazz said, surprising Valerie. "We didn't run our theory by Mom and Dad. Dad, especially, might've…overreacted." Jazz stared at her hands for a moment, then looked up at Valerie. "But in the time I was there, I realized that things didn't make sense if this was Desiree. From what I understand, she grows more powerful with every wish she grants. She wouldn't gain anything by getting rid of any of the people."

"She didn't," Valerie reminded her. "I mean, you came back, right?"

"I know," Jazz said, though she still sounded a bit uncertain, "but it wouldn't make sense for Desiree to just get rid of us and not stick around. I mean, what if we'd wished to go home? Wouldn't that be an easy way to grant wishes? It would've made far more sense for her to move a larger group of people and return them slowly, gaining power each time she granted a wish."

"She would've needed a wish to start with," Valerie pointed out.

"That's what I'm worried about," Jazz admitted. "It means someone doesn't like us."

Valerie winced. "Not exactly. Look, Jazz, I think _I_ was the one who made the wish. Not against you guys!" she added quickly. "It was something to do with Danny Phantom. I think your family got dragged into it because you're ghost hunters."

Jazz wore a peculiar expression for a moment, but she soon schooled her features. "Our parents are, at any rate. Maybe that's why I got free. Because I'm not."

"Yeah," Valerie agreed. "Danny will probably turn up next."

"No!" Jazz exclaimed. At Valerie's look, she explained, "I mean, Danny's got potential. That's what Mom and Dad say, anyway. I mean, I've done a bit of ghost hunting, too, but Danny's better than me."

"He is?" Valerie's eyes widened. "I've never seen him fight." She'd heard rumours at school that Danny had led a group of kids when a bunch of the parents in Amity Park had been kidnapped by a ghost (or had it been ghosts?), but she hadn't actually thought that it was something Danny could've done on his own. From what Jazz was saying, maybe it was.

"Well, he, uh, doesn't do it much where people can tell that he's the one fighting," Jazz explained. "I don't know how well you know Danny, but he wants to be an astronaut when he's older. He doesn't want this to interfere. And, if Mom and Dad get their way, it will."

Valerie was nodding. "That makes sense," she said, remembering when Danny had told her what he wanted to be when he grew up. She'd been surprised and rather impressed. But she could understand why Danny thought ghost hunting might interfere. If his parents thought he was any good at it, they'd probably be after him to keep at it, and being an astronaut took a lot of work. She knew Danny wasn't the greatest student in school now, and he'd really have to crack down and hit the books if he wanted the grades so he'd be accepted so he could actually do what he wanted. She knew how much time ghost hunting took; for a while, in the start, _her_ grades had started to slip, until she'd gotten the hang of things and gotten right back to where she was supposed to be. Thankfully, her dad and her teachers had thought it was because she'd ended up moving to Elmerton, and she'd never found reason to correct them.

"What if I'm the only one who wasn't needed?" Jazz finally asked, twisting her hands together in worry. "What if, I don't know, Desiree or whoever it was needs the rest of my family for something? What if they don't make it back?"

"Calm down, Jazz," Valerie advised. "I've seen your mom in action, and she's pretty good. And you said Danny's good, and your dad, well, is enthusiastic, so…."

"I'm going to get another piece of fudge," Jazz said, standing abruptly. "I'll be back in a minute."

Valerie sighed as Jazz headed back to the kitchen. They were in the living room now, waiting for Sam and Tucker to show. Valerie checked her watch. They should be here soon. It was just as well. She wasn't doing a very good job of helping Jazz cope, as far as she could tell, and if Sam and Tucker had any info at all, it might help calm Jazz's nerves. And if not, well, it would at least give her something to do. Valerie figured Jazz worried about as much as her father did.

She didn't have any siblings, so she didn't really know what it was like to worry about a younger brother, but she did know what it was like to worry about her dad. They'd been through some rough times since he'd lost his job because of Phantom, and Valerie had gotten more than one life lesson as they'd worked their way through that experience. So, she could sort of sympathize with Jazz. But she'd never been in a situation where she wasn't sure her dad would survive, and Jazz was clearly thinking the worst.

"Man, I hope Sam and Tucker have good news," Valerie muttered. "We sure need it."

* * *

><p>The Box Ghost wasn't cooperating, but perhaps that was because he had yet to notice that he had company. Vlad, as Plasmius, hovered just inside the doorway of the warehouse where he'd found the dratted ghost. He had his arms crossed at the moment, but he had no qualms about blasting the Box Ghost a time or two to get his full attention.<p>

After another ten seconds passed, Vlad's patience ran out, and he shot a ghost ray to incinerate a few of the boxes the Box Ghost had been fawning over.

That got the Box Ghost's attention.

"What?" he bellowed. "Who dares to harm my precious boxes? I am the Box Ghost, and I—" He broke off abruptly as he spotted Plasmius.

"You know where Danny Phantom is," Vlad said simply. "Tell me."

The Box Ghost shook his head. "I do not."

The Box Ghost looked like he was about to continue, so Vlad cut in while he had the chance. "You do," he countered, sending another blast at the ghost for refusing to cooperate. "And I do not appreciate being lied to."

"He's in the other place!" the Box Ghost cried, hovering protectively over the remainder of the boxes.

"And what, pray tell, is this 'other place'? Where is it?"

"It is here," the Box Ghost said, making absolutely no sense whatsoever. Vlad supposed he shouldn't have expected so much; it was, after all, the Box Ghost. "It is all around us. I do not like it there. I will not go back."

Vlad sighed. "How did you get out?"

The Box Ghost shrugged. "I do not know. I was there when the halfa trapped me in his cylindrical container, and when I escaped, I was returned here."

Someone released him, then. Vlad highly doubted the Box Ghost, of all ghosts, would have found a way out of the Fenton Thermos. But that didn't explain anything. "Did Desiree create this 'other place'?"

The Box Ghost shook his head. "It was old magic. If the wishing ghost released it, she does not control it."

Old magic? What nonsense was this? "What are you blathering about?" Vlad snapped. "Desiree's magic is her own."

"Then she is not the one who put the halfa in the other place," the Box Ghost replied.

Vlad glowered at the Box Ghost and let his anger show by way of smouldering pink flames licking his fingers. "Do you have any useful information," he asked quietly, "or are you simply an annoyance?"

The Box Ghost took the hint, his eyes widening. He darted a quick glance at the boxes behind him, then faced Plasmius again. "There are bridges," he said quickly, "between here and the other place. If you have the right tools, you might be able to build your own."

"Right tools?" Vlad repeated. "What right tools? What are the right tools?"

But the Box Ghost had already fled, taking the boxes with him.

* * *

><p>Sam and Tucker got to FentonWorks in good time, and they'd joined Valerie and Jazz in the living room—with the fudge. Tucker had insisted on being able to help himself to said fudge. He'd skipped lunch, and he never skipped lunch. Well, except for the time that it had literally been grass and mud, but seeing as he'd feasted on meat later that day, that didn't really count. And, besides, he'd been doing a lot of running, and that took energy. Fudge wasn't meat, but it was something that he trusted not to be contaminated in the Fenton household, and that stood for something.<p>

Well, actually, it stood for everything. Tucker had learned very early on in his friendship with Danny to decline every time Mr. and Mrs. F offered to let him stay for supper. Cookies and fudge were about the only foods he really trusted here.

After Valerie and Jazz had had their turns, Sam explained what they'd figured out. Valerie looked like she had a ton of questions, so either Jazz or Sam kept interrupting her to make sure she didn't get a chance to ask them. Tucker left them to it, instead helping himself to another piece of fudge. He couldn't think of excuses on an empty stomach. No good ones, anyway.

"Mom and Dad and Danny are the only ones there, as far as I know," Jazz said. She glanced at Valerie, then looked Sam and Tucker squarely in the eyes. "And Danny Phantom. He hasn't left since he showed up. I don't think he can."

Tucker might've been starved for food, but even he could decipher what Jazz meant. Danny was in ghost mode. But if no other ghost was there, he wouldn't have had any reason to go ghost, and he certainly wouldn't've done it otherwise; he'd agreed to play it cool with the whole ghost hunters' convention thing on, and he wasn't stupid. Something else had gone wrong, so Danny had gone ghost, but if he couldn't leave, that had to mean….

Danny couldn't change back? That couldn't be good.

Sam leaned back in her seat and groaned. Evidently, she'd come to the same conclusion.

"I'll bet that spook's enjoying himself," Valerie muttered darkly. "Probably likes seeing people stuck in a situation they don't like."

"He's stuck, too, as far as I can tell," Jazz reminded her, "and you were the one to make a wish."

Sam hadn't taken the news of Val's wish very well, but she'd managed to restrain herself from attacking the other girl. As for Tucker, well, he didn't like Jazz's reminder anymore than Sam did, but Valerie's hatred of Danny's ghost half probably wasn't going to change anytime soon. She might call a truce and compromise with him when things got really bad, but she always went back to hunting him.

"Yeah, I guess," Valerie said, relenting. "I hope your family catches him, though."

Jazz sighed. "Believe me, they're going to try." From what she'd told them of the scene she'd left, Danny was probably in a lot of trouble with his parents.

Sam got to her feet and grabbed Tucker's hand. "I need to talk to you," she said, pulling him to his feet. "Jazz," she added, "can you come show us what food in the fridge might be safe to eat? I can't really exist on fudge."

"Of course," Jazz said, "but I can't guarantee we'll find anything." But she got to her feet as well and followed the two of them into the kitchen. Jazz went to the fridge and started rummaging around, to keep up pretences, and Sam kept her voice low so that Valerie wouldn't make out what she was saying.

"We should've seen it before, Tucker," she said quietly.

"Seen what?"

"What Clockwork meant. Danny _Phantom_ can't be saved by his friends. Vlad's certainly not his friend, and the Red Huntress still wants him gone. Valerie might be Danny _Fenton_'s friend, but she's not Phantom's."

"And Danny's stuck as Phantom," Jazz added, closing the fridge door and turning to the cupboards. "I don't know if it's related or not, but he can't change back." She shifted around a few containers, paused, and looked back at Sam and Tucker. "But if you guys talked to Clockwork, that would be why the Spectre Speeder's gone and why I had to close the portal." She nodded to herself. "We'll have to get that back, you know. Mom and Dad might not notice once they get back because of everything that's happened, but the minute this is blown over, they'll realize it's missing." She turned back to her task and, after a moment more of rummaging, she pulled out a box of cereal. "I think it might be this or toast," she told Sam.

Sam glanced at the cereal, frowned at the sight of a dull green stain on the front of the box, and sighed, evidently not willing to risk it, even if Jazz figured it was fine. "Never mind. I can live on fudge until the end of the day."

Tucker looked doubtfully at the cereal when Jazz turned to him. "I don't suppose you have any non-contaminated meat?"

"You can be the judge yourself," Jazz said. "It's in the fridge. But, personally, I'd stick with the cereal."

"I'll go get more fudge," Tucker decided, heading back into the living room. Sam and Jazz followed, with Jazz still holding the cereal box. When the doorbell rang, she left the box with them and went to answer the door.

"_Jasmine_?" The disbelief was evident, and the owner of the voice all too obvious.

"Oh," Jazz said when she opened the door. "Hi, Vlad. Come in. I'd thought Dad had said you were out of town."

"Thank you, Jasmine," Vlad said, recovering from his shock and nodding at her. "And your father was, no doubt, repeating an assumption of his when I told him I would be unable to show my support for their convention. Now, may I ask how you made it back here?"

"I don't really know," Jazz answered, closing the door and heading back to the living room.

"Did you find anything out?" Valerie asked, scrambling to her feet when Vlad came into the living room.

"Yeah, did you find anything?" Sam said, sounding a good deal more threatening than Valerie had—but then, to Valerie, Vlad wasn't the enemy.

Man, that girl had definitely targeted the wrong halfa. Vlad was way more evil than Danny any day. Well, any day not a day ten years in a future that no longer happens, but still.

Tucker couldn't help but wonder if Val would ever see the truth.

Vlad flicked a few pieces of dust off his suit. "From what I can gather from my sources, the Fentons—minus young Jasmine here, I see—are trapped in another vein of reality."

"Tell us something we don't know," Tucker said.

Vlad frowned at him. "I was told that there are bridges, and it is my assumption that they can be crossed. Perhaps that is why you are back with us," Vlad added, looking at Jazz.

"I guess," Jazz said, "but I hardly moved. I don't actually know if I _did_ move. I was just…shifted back here."

"Nevertheless, you crossed a bridge," Vlad said.

"Yeah, we get that," Sam said. "I'm with Tucker. Tell us something we don't know."

"He is," Valerie said, looking surprised at how much disrespect they were showing Vlad. Oh, what he would give to see her face if she ever found out he was Plasmius….

Sam shook her head. "Tuck and I hadn't gotten to that part yet. It made the least amount of sense, and I was sort of hoping everything you guys said would put it into perspective, but it didn't."

Vlad huffed. "I doubt my little trip to my informant was an entire waste," he said. "Did you know that these bridges could be built?"

Silence. Then—

"How?" they all burst out together, the minute Vlad's words had registered in their minds.

Vlad seem to deflate a little, but Tucker figured it was all a show. It usually was, with him. "I'm afraid I don't know. I only know it can be done."

"That doesn't tell us much," Sam muttered.

But, maybe, combined with what Clockwork had said, it did. Danny Phantom couldn't be helped by his friends. And bridges could be built. So maybe he and Sam couldn't build any bridges because there were already bridges there, and those were ones that they couldn't use. They had to build new ones, or rebuild old ones, or something.

The bridges they were dealing with weren't literal. Tucker had figured that one out. But it wasn't entirely figurative, either, if it was supposed to be a connection between the two places. Or two people. Valerie might have a thing against Danny's ghost half, but if she'd fought alongside him before, maybe…. Maybe she could rebuild a bridge she'd burnt before. Maybe she could help get him back.

Tucker wasn't entirely sure how they could do that without telling her, though. He wanted her to cooperate, not rant about how they were being brainwashed by a stupid ghost.

"Let's go down to the lab," Jazz suggested quietly. "If we're going to find anything that can help us here, it'll be down there."

Or maybe those bridges were more on the literal than the figurative side after all. Man, thinking about that made his head hurt. It was almost as bad as doing mental math or trying to come up with an interpretation for some supposed symbolism in one of the books they had to read for Mr. Lancer. He could mention what he was thinking to Sam, or Jazz, or someone who was better at this sort of thing than he was. He would rather solve a computer problem or hack into someone's system any day.

"But what if we don't find anything?" Valerie asked. "I mean, I hate to say it, but someone has to. What if we don't?"

Sam glanced at Jazz, then Tucker, then Valerie. It figured that she'd ignore Vlad completely. "We will," she said. "We have to."

* * *

><p>AN: I'm going to go back to split chapters before anyone gets too annoyed with me for not telling what happens with Danny quickly enough. It's coming. I'll try to make it worth the wait. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to review.


	12. Chapter 12

Danny lost track of time. That was fairly easy to do, seeing as he was stuck in the Fenton Weasel. Unlike the Fenton Thermos, the Fenton Weasel was big enough—for him, at least, if he was the only ghost in there—to retain his form. That meant, of course, that he could hear everything his parents were saying. Technically, he could talk back, too, but somehow he doubted they'd be willing to listen to anything he said at the moment.

Besides, if he was going to try talking, he'd have to shift his arm from in front of his mouth so they could actually understand what he was saying, and he wasn't sure he had enough wiggle room to even do that.

It would figure they'd capture him the minute anyone who could help him was gone. Granted, if he'd paid more attention, they still wouldn't've got him. Not yet, anyway. He should've left as soon as he heard them in the house. It wasn't like he didn't know about the defence system. He just hadn't thought it could actually catch him. He really should've paid more attention at the dinner table when his parents were blathering on about improvements to their weapons.

At the very least, Jazz should've warned him. She actually usually paid attention to their parents, if only so she'd know what they were up to.

Or had she told him during one of the times he'd been ignoring her, too? Sometimes it was just so hard to keep focussed, especially when Jazz got into one of her protective big sister rants. She meant well. Danny knew that. But sometimes, well, sometimes he would rather not have her hanging over his shoulder, trying to help.

Unfortunately, this was not one of those times, and Danny would've given just about anything to get her back.

"I really wish I knew who was behind this," Danny muttered, though his words, as he'd predicted, were indistinguishable. He didn't know whether the wishing thing that had started this whole mess off still applied, but it hadn't ever affected him, anyway, and for all he knew, it was just restricted to the school. Besides, as much as the wishing thing had really pointed to Desiree, nothing else did. And no matter how many times he went over it, he couldn't come up with another explanation. This didn't even fit in with what Nocturne did.

Granted, the way things were going, he actually sort of wished it did, if only because he'd fought him before. But if it was Nocturne, Danny didn't think he could get through this without help. And his parents definitely wouldn't be helping, from the sounds of it.

He'd spent the last who knew how long trying to ignore what they were saying, but some of it invariably seeped through. They'd switched the defence system back off, of course, and set up a bunch of things in the meantime that were supposed to contain him when they finally let him out, cages and tables with phase-proof straps being the most prominent. The latter reminded him a bit too strongly of the thing Maddie Masters had caught him in when he'd been in that horrible, horrible alternate timeline that was all the proof he needed that changing the past to fix the present really didn't work. At all.

Granted, he didn't really like whatever this was, either. Not an alternate timeline, but an alternate reality was definitely possible. Except these were his real parents, not his alternate timeline/reality/whatever parents, so things could only be ten times worse than it looked on the surface, since his parents would probably remember this whenever it was all over.

No easy fixes with a Reality Gauntlet this time.

The Fenton Weasel suddenly roared to life and Danny was forcibly ejected. When the spinning finally stopped, he cracked one eye and saw bars. His parents had opted for the cage. That was actually probably a good thing, for him. The table would've meant torture—though his parents probably wouldn't think of it as torture, since they didn't think ghosts had feelings—and, more likely than not, experiments.

The whole 'cage' thing looked a lot better in that light.

It would've been nice if it was a slightly bigger cage, though. He was floating in its centre, staying away from what was probably the equivalent of electrified bars. He shifted into a hunched over, cross-legged position, carefully avoided the edges of the cage, and then looked at his parents. His dad was munching on a few of his mom's cookies—he vaguely recalled a comment about it being past suppertime, now that he thought about it—and his mom had just put down the Fenton Weasel. On the upside, she hadn't picked anything up. That had to be good, right?

"Um, hi?" Danny said, giving them a half-smile.

Neither of his parents smiled back. "Phantom," Maddie said quietly, "if you tell us what you've done, we'll consider letting you go."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Consider? That's not a really good offer." His mother frowned, and he quickly added, "But I couldn't take it anyway. I haven't done anything. Well, not lately. I'm sorry about the town hall. It was kind of unavoidable."

"I'm not talking about the town hall," came the reply.

Danny knew that tone of his mother's voice. He never liked hearing it, unless it wasn't directed at him, but he hadn't heard it directed at Jazz in long, long, _long_ time. "Yeah, I figured," Danny said, "but that's the last thing I've been involved in, honest."

Maddie started laughing, but it sounded forced, or desperate, or something. It wasn't her normal laughter. "You expect us to believe that, ghost?" she asked.

"This isn't my fault," Danny insisted. "I don't know what happened any more than you do." Well, he might know a _little_ more than they did, but definitely not enough to really have a clue as to what was going on.

"What have you done with Danny and Jazz?" Jack asked, having finished the cookies and picked up an ectogun, which was now neatly aimed at Danny.

"I didn't do anything," Danny repeated. "Look, Jazz disappearing when I was there was a coincidence, and—"

"Why did you have Danny's phone?" Jack asked, pulling it out. Danny cringed; he'd forgotten about that. It figured that his dad would find it.

Danny tried to work out what he should say. Denying it probably wouldn't work too well, but he'd be in for it if he admitted that Danny Fenton was friends with Danny Phantom. "I found it," he finally said. "I was going to return it. I—"

"Danny knows better than to associate with ghosts," Maddie hissed. "How would you even know that the phone belonged to him, unless you have been plotting this kidnapping for weeks, even months, now?"

Danny sighed. "I didn't kidnap Danny and Jazz, okay? And I wasn't sure the phone was your son's. I was going to, uh, see if anyone had lost—"

"You stole it," Jack interrupted. "And you used it to lure the kids away—"

"What? What gave you _that_ idea?"

"You led Jazz into that alley so she could be caught in your trap," Jack said. "You probably used Danny as bait, to keep her preoccupied while you kidnapped—"

"I didn't kidnap them!" Danny burst out. "Jack, Maddie, I know who you are. You're the _Fentons_. You're _ghost hunters_. Why would I want to kidnap your kids?"

"Because you thought it would throw us off our game," Maddie replied quietly, "and that it would give you something to bargain with."

"We've got news, ghost," Jack said, priming the ectogun. "It hasn't."

Crud. His dad might have horrible aim, but with the size of the cage, Danny wouldn't exactly be able to avoid the blast. He wasn't sure how well his ghost powers worked in this thing; for all he knew, he couldn't even go intangible. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

"I've got news, too," Danny said quickly, almost before he realized what he was saying. "Whatever is happening is not because of me. I think we're the only ones left in the entire town; you guys are the only ones I've seen. So, if Danny and Jazz have disappeared, that's probably a good thing. They're probably with everyone else." Hopefully.

"Oh, I don't doubt they are." It was his mother speaking again. "But whether or not they are safe still remains to be seen."

Danny opened his mouth to make a retort to that before closing it. He really _didn't_ know whether Jazz was safe or not. He just assumed she was, since he figured she was back with everyone else. He was assuming the best; his parents were assuming the worst. And anything he said to try to convince them that the worst may not have happened was probably fruitless. They didn't believe a word that was coming out of his mouth and, chances were, that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

A shrill beeping filled the air, and Maddie started. "Oh, that'll be our dinner, Jack," she said. "I'll be back in a minute."

Danny breathed a small sigh of relief as his mother ran up the stairs. One parent at a time was better than two. Besides, his dad wasn't pointing the ectogun at him anymore. He'd jerked around at the sound of the timer, too, and had accidentally fired the ectogun off at some unsuspecting beakers.

Danny took advantage of his dad's distraction. "Look, um, Jack, you know I wouldn't hurt your family, right?" He really, really hoped his dad remembered what had happened last time Danny had been in a situation like this. "I'm trying to help people in this town. I'm trying to stop the other ghosts, like you two and the Red Huntress are. Besides, I helped you save your family before, didn't I? The time you beat up Plasmius and threw him back into the Ghost Zone? Why would I help you then and turn around and kidnap your family now? That doesn't make any sense!"

"It doesn't have to make sense," Jack said. "You're a ghost. You were just trying to lull me into a false sense of security."

Danny resisted the urge to slap his forehead. "Not all ghosts are evil," he said instead, trying to shove away the image of Dan that had sprung into his mind with that remark. "And we're not all exactly master manipulators, either. I mean, sure, some like Plasmius are pretty good, or think they are, but you've met the Box Ghost. What's the worst he can do?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were here when he opened Pandora's Box."

Danny sighed. "I was. I was the one who tracked down Pandora and told her what was going on. But the Box Ghost didn't exactly think things through then, and it's not like any of the ghosts who have plotted to take over the world have actually succeeded."

"So you think you're learning from their mistakes, do you? Get rid of your biggest threats first? Threaten my family and—"

Danny held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, slow down. No. I don't want to take over the world. I don't even want to take over Amity Park. Conquest is not on my agenda. All I'm trying to do is protect my town."

Jack looked surprised. "You lived here?"

"Uh, um, yeah, I guess. Now I just, sort of, um…. It's kinda like Sydney Poindexter haunts one of the lockers at Casper High. Or used to. He can't anymore." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. He sort of felt bad for that; Sydney hadn't been that bad, considering some of the other ghosts he ran into. He wasn't the sort of ghost Danny would consider an enemy. If it hadn't been for a little misunderstanding, they wouldn't've gotten off on the wrong foot, and they might've been good friends. Of course, they probably still could be friends, if Danny went to visit him, but he hadn't had time to do that yet. "He'd been using a mirror as his portal to the Real World, and I broke it, so he's stuck in the Ghost Zone. Well, I guess he might be able to get out like any of the other ghosts seem to get out, but he doesn't."

Jack nodded. "So you try to protect 'your town' because you think it's 'your haunt'."

"What?" Danny blinked. "No! I'm trying to protect it because I don't want it to be overrun by ghosts!"

"You are a ghost."

That time, Danny did smack his forehead. "Okay, I walked into that one." Saying he was trying to protect Amity Park from other ghosts would just support his dad's misguided theory. At least they were talking and he wasn't getting shot at. "But my point is, I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You just want them gone."

"No," Danny quickly countered, "I just…. I just want people to be safe."

"So what did you do with everyone? Throw them into the Ghost Zone?"

"I already said, I'm not behind this!"

"Then who is?"

"I don't know," Danny admitted quietly. "I wish I did."

"So do I," Jack said, "but wishing doesn't get us anywhere. I wish I was back with Jazz and—"

Danny blinked.

Jack Fenton did not reappear.

Aw, crud. His mom was definitely going to kill him now. And, he was still in a cage. Great. Knowing that that wishing thing was still going on wasn't going to help him much, not when he couldn't use it to his advantage. At least his parents weren't prone _to_ wishing, not since they'd heard of Desiree. His dad had probably just said it because he had and….

This was not going to be easy to explain.

And he could hear his mother coming down the stairs again.

Crud. This day just kept getting better and better….

* * *

><p>"<em>Dad<em>?"

Jack Fenton turned around at the sound of his daughter's voice. Sure enough, there was Jazz, standing at the foot of the stairs down into the lab. Behind her, he could see Danny's friends, Sam and Tucker and that other girl—Valerie?—and, bringing up the rear, none other than good ol' Vladdy. Wasn't he supposed to be out of town? He must've rushed back when he'd heard they were missing. Jack grinned. He couldn't ask for a better friend.

Jack turned back to look at the ghost boy, but he wasn't there, and neither was the cage they'd put him into. Come to that, neither was the mess from his and Maddie's mad scramble to find everything they'd need for a good interrogation of the ghost kid.

Phantom must've seen him as a threat, gotten rid of him, sent him back to his family. But if that were the case, someone was missing. "Where's Danny?" Jack asked as everyone finished making their way down the stairs and joined him and Jazz in the lab.

He watched as Jazz exchanged glances with some of the others. "He's, um, not here, Dad."

Jack frowned. "I knew that ghost kid was lying," he muttered.

Jazz's eyes widened. "You mean Danny Phantom?" she asked quickly. "Did you and Mom catch him?"

Jack smiled a bit at his daughter's enthusiasm. "Course we did, Jazzy-pants. No ghost kidnaps you and gets away with it."

"But he _didn't_ kidnap me," Jazz said. "He didn't do anything."

Jack sighed. It hadn't been enthusiasm in Jazz's voice after all; it had been worry, or apprehension, or some other big word that meant something like that. She needed to learn that Phantom wasn't a good ghost, despite the façade he put up. He and Maddie should never have let her start keeping that scrapbook about Phantom's so-called achievements. "Your mother's still there," he said, though he found it hard to realize that Maddie and Danny were somewhere where he couldn't protect them. "She'll find Danny, and then she'll get them home. She'll make that ghost kid tell her where he put him."

"Um, Mr. Fenton," Sam said, "can you tell us what things are like back there? I mean, we—" and here she gestured at the rest of the group "—are trying to figure out how to get you guys home. Well, Mrs. Fenton and Danny, at least."

"I don't think you guys can do anything," he said. He looked at his old college buddy. "You should know that, V-Man. If a ghost pulls something like this, you have to deal with the ghost behind it all. You can't stop it if you don't deal with the root of the problem, and Phantom's back with Maddie and Danny."

Vlad gritted his teeth. "Of course I realize that, Jack," he replied. "Unlike some people, I am not a fool. However, as much as it pains me to say it, I am not convinced that Danny Phantom is the ghost behind this."

"It's Desiree, the wishing ghost," said Valerie. "She went and twisted one of her wishes."

Jack stared at her. Phantom had been telling the truth?

Nah, the kids had to be mistaken. He was a bit more surprised that Vlad was taking their side; like the Fentons, he had never seemed particularly supportive of Danny Phantom, though Jack suspected he played his cards close to his chest because he didn't want to lose the popular vote. Too much of the town had fallen for Phantom's false charm.

"So, Mr. F," Tucker started, pulling out his PDA, "if you can tell us what things were like when you left them, we can see if we can figure out a way to get Mrs. Fenton and Danny back. The more information, the better."

Jack stared at Tucker, then looked back at Vlad. "You aren't the one who organized this?"

Vlad closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and simply replied, "I was alerted of your disappearance after Daniel's friends realized his, and subsequently your, absence. As mayor of Amity Park and as your _dear_ friend, I have been doing everything I can to ascertain the safe return of Maddie and Daniel."

Jack grinned. "I'd do the same for you, V-Man!" he assured him, clapping him on the back. His stomach grumbled, and he spotted a piece of fudge in Valerie's hand. "Hey, is that fudge? Where's mine?"

Jazz sighed. "It's upstairs, Dad. I'll get it. You just tell everyone what happened after I left, all right? We won't be able to get Mom and Danny back if we can't figure out precisely what happened."

"Hurry back, Jazz," Jack called as she started up the stairs. "I just missed supper."

Jazz froze and turned back to look at her father. "Supper?" she repeated. She looked at her watch. "It's only three-thirty."

"It's two," Tucker said, brandishing his PDA. Sure enough, the electronic clock on the thing read 2:04.

Sam looked at Tucker. "The time's running differently," was all she said.

"Then we'd better hurry," Tucker replied. "Danny's counting on us."

* * *

><p>Maddie Fenton froze when she got to the bottom of the stairs. Her husband was nowhere in sight. Her eyes darted to the cage that held Phantom, and she was relieved to see that he was still there. She was going to get answers.<p>

Her appetite gone, Maddie placed the two plates of food on one of the counters. She could see Phantom watching her carefully. She wasn't sure how he'd done whatever he'd done to Jack, but she certainly wasn't going to give him the opportunity to pull the same trick on her.

She picked up the key to the cage and one of the guns that shot out phase-proof nets. She had a feeling Phantom might need a bit more incentive to answer her questions. He watched her warily as she unlocked the cage. "What are you doing?" he asked.

She caught him in the net and carefully extracted him from the cage. "You'll see," she replied. She knew she couldn't keep him in the net long—in all the fights she'd seen Phantom take part in over Amity Park, she'd seen him burst out of numerous nets like these, either by freezing them or creating a particularly powerful ectoblast—and she hoped to keep him preoccupied for the minute or two it took to get him into place.

Fortunately, Phantom didn't realize what she was planning. Instead, he peered up at her through the net. "Um, you know this isn't necessary, right?"

She let out a short bark of laughter. Not necessary? It was entirely necessary. "Are you saying you wouldn't try to escape?" In a practised motion, she whipped the net towards the table. It snapped open and flung Phantom toward said table. He landed squarely on his back, all four limbs splayed out in the perfect positions to be held by the straps, which automatically activated and held him in place.

"Aw, crud," he muttered, twisting and straining to get free.

"I need answers, Phantom," Maddie said softly, picking up an electrified prod. Ghosts might not have emotions, but they could feel pain, or at least think they were feeling pain. She would never consider doing this to another human, but she wasn't dealing with a human. She was dealing with a ghost, one that had robbed her of her family and blatantly denied it.

Phantom eyed the prod and did a remarkable job of looking scared, but Maddie wasn't fooled in the slightest. "Okay," he said quickly, "the net wasn't necessary, but that's _really_ not necessary."

"I need answers," Maddie repeated.

"And I'll be happy to oblige," Phantom said immediately as she brought the prod closer to him. "Just…don't do that."

"Where is my family?"

"Back where they should be," Phantom said. "I think."

Maddie gripped the prod tighter. "Where is my family, ghost? What have you done with them? What have you done with me? Where am I? This isn't home."

"Uh, um, Mo-uh, Maddie, I don't—" Phantom's sentence cut off with an abrupt scream and she brought the prod down onto his chest. He jerked and strained against his bonds for a moment before she drew the prod back.

"No lies," she said quietly, watching as the ghost lay back against the table, panting.

Hold on. Panting? Ghosts didn't breathe.

But, sure enough, she could see Phantom's chest quickly rising and falling as he gulped in air.

Another trick. It had to be. It always was, with ghosts.

"Not my fault," Phantom finally whispered. He was still breathing—well, pretending to breathe—heavily. "I swear." More breaths. "Don't want anyone hurt."

Perhaps the imitation of breathing was psychological. Phantom might be a young ghost, still attached to his human life. He certainly pretended he acted more human than the other ghosts, though Maddie knew full well he was not. After all, a ghost was a ghost. A human form with vaguely human colouring didn't make a ghost any more human than the next ghost. It simply wasn't possible.

"Just answer my questions," Maddie said reasonably.

"I'm not doing this," Phantom repeated. "I think your family's safe, with the rest of Amity Park." He paused, and if he were human, she would have said that it was to catch his breath. "I think we're trapped somewhere else. Not the Ghost Zone. Not the human realm. Somewhere…in between. Don't know. Don't know who did it. Not me."

Clearly, he wasn't going to change his answer any time soon. Perhaps the prod wasn't enough incentive. Maddie switched it off and put it aside, then turned to look for another tool to use. She and Jack had been hunting Phantom for ages, but now that she finally had him, she couldn't bear to do everything she and Jack had discussed without him being here. They could catch him again, another time, and run their experiments together. Right now, she wasn't sure she could take the time to indulge in a bit of research, even when she did have the subject at her disposal. She didn't want to risk it.

"It might be Desiree."

Maddie turned around to look at Phantom, surprised he'd volunteered any information. But perhaps he'd simply told her the first lie that had come into his head. She wasn't yet sure. "Desiree?" she repeated.

"The wishing ghost," Phantom explained, even though Maddie knew perfectly well who Desiree was. "People's wishes come true here, wherever this is. That's what Desiree does. That's how she becomes more powerful. She grants wishes."

"You're the only ghost in the vicinity, Phantom," Maddie told him shortly. "Your excuses aren't helping you."

"It's not an excuse."

Maddie snorted. "Well, if wishes come true here, Phantom, why don't you wish to be free?"

"I can't. I'm not affected by the wishes." At her look, he quickly added, "I don't know why! I'm just…not."

"So if I wished for you to tell the truth, you would still be lying to me."

"I'm not lying to you. I _am_ telling you the truth. You don't have to wish it for it to be so."

Maddie chuckled. "You'll have to come up with something better than that, I'm afraid."

Phantom sighed. "It's the truth," he repeated. "I don't know why Jazz disappeared. She never said anything before she vanished. But Jack wished to be back with Jazz, and that's what happened. That's why he's not trapped here anymore."

"Jack wished to be with Jazz and not with Jazz and Danny?" Maddie asked, raising her eyebrows.

"He never got the chance," Phantom said. "The wish took hold too soon. And there's no guarantee that Danny and Jazz are in the same place, anyway."

Maddie crossed her arms. "All right, then. If Jack is with Jazz, then I wish to be with Danny."

Nothing happened.

But then again, she hadn't expected it to.

* * *

><p>AN: And then there were two. Or six, if you look at the flipside. *pauses* So, worth the wait? Thanks to everyone who takes the time to review!


	13. Chapter 13

Clockwork watched as the Observants finished their trial. They'd release Desiree back into his custody. The Observants never did any of the dirty work; all they did was observe—and judge. Personally, Clockwork didn't think they were particularly fit to judge. As much as they observed, they never truly knew. Not like he did. While he enjoyed the distinction of the Master of Time, he was not above it. Not entirely. And, as such, he could become part of it and influence events, as he had so often before with young Danny.

He had been the one to fetch Desiree from Amity Park, calling a time out so he could whisk her away from the Red Huntress. Now, he would be the one to receive the weeping, repentant ghost, and he would be the one to explain what the Observants had failed to: the reasons behind the consequences, not just the consequences themselves.

Clockwork turned away until the Observants had released the wishing ghost into his tower. He could hear her sobbing. Undoubtedly she had been threatened with confinement again, akin to the one she had endured with Madam Babazita. She was lucky the punishment had not already been carried out.

As his form shifted from adult to child, Clockwork turned to face Desiree. He didn't say anything; he didn't have to. He just watched her until her sobs subsided. Then he asked, "What have you learned?"

She recited what the Observants had told her. It was long and tedious, but it was still the right lesson. By drawing on the wild magic, the very form that had enabled her existence, she had tampered with a delicate balance of which she'd been unaware. It had tipped, just briefly, just slightly, and it had shifted a few moments of time and captured them in the short-lived existence of a temporary realm. It was small enough to be fixable, but the existence of the world was a volatile one. It was unstable, and it would break down.

Before it did, Clockwork knew, Danny Phantom needed to get himself and his family out of it. That work had already begun; the father and the sister were free. As Danny's friends and Phantom's enemies were working on building a bridge, however temporary, that could be crossed, there was a chance that the rest of the family would make it out, too.

"Why did you allow the wish to develop the way it did?" Clockwork asked as Desiree finished her story.

The wishing ghost avoided his gaze. "I was angry," she confessed softly. "I wanted revenge. Danny Phantom—"

"Has saved your life," Clockwork finished. "He has saved all of us, more than once, from evils spawned in both his world and ours. Have you never visited the people of the Far Frozen? They honour the young halfa, for he is the Saviour of the Ghost Zone."

"I didn't mean for things to turn out quite like this," Desiree admitted, fiddling with her hands like a child who was well aware that she was being scolded. "I merely wanted to be rid of him, as I had when I'd granted his friend's wish that she'd never met him."

"Be glad that you did not succeed then, and hope that you have not succeeded now. Danny Phantom has much ahead of him that he must do."

Desiree looked up sharply. "It's not over?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

Clockwork shook his head. "Not yet. Not quite." Desiree drifted closer to him, and he allowed her to see the portal he had spent so much of his time examining. "But the final pieces are falling into place. It will not be long."

* * *

><p>Mr. Fenton's story, Valerie figured, didn't seem too much different than Jazz's. She wasn't really sure why Jazz, Sam, and Tucker looked so distressed at the thought that the Fentons had finally caught Phantom. He might not be the ghost behind this, but he probably knew something. Like Mr. Fenton had said, ghosts lie all the time. She knew that. How many times had Phantom claimed he didn't want to hurt her and followed it up with a few ectoblasts in her general direction?<p>

"All right," Jazz said, taking charge, "if we think that I came over on a bridge of some sort, and Vlad has figured out that there's a way to build a bridge, then we need to figure out how to do that and do it. It's probably best if we split into pairs. Sam—"

"I'll work with Tucker," Sam said quickly.

"And you and I can work together, Vladdy!" Jack exclaimed.

Valerie didn't miss Vlad's flinch. "Actually," he said, "I thought it might be better if I took Valerie under my wing for this little project. We have the same knowledge, Jack, and it's far better if we allow a new set of eyes to look it over and see things we might have missed."

Jack looked disappointed for a moment before grinning broadly and wrapping his arm around Jazz. "Then I'll just work with my favourite daughter!" he proclaimed. "We make a good team, don't we, Jazzy-pants?"

Valerie was a bit surprised when Jazz actually smiled and agreed. "Yeah, we do. So, I'll work with Dad here in the lab, and—"

"Valerie and I will work at my mansion," Vlad interrupted. "That way, we'll have access to all the resources at my disposal."

Jazz nodded, and Valerie wondered if she actually knew anything about Vlad's 'resources'. Did she know he had a secret lab, too? He had to, given the ghost hunting equipment he had supplied her with, but given his position in the community, it probably wasn't something he advertised.

"Sam and I can work upstairs," Tucker suggested.

Jazz shook her head. "I think you two might as well go back to the school."

"The school?" Sam repeated.

"That's where we disappeared from," Jazz explained. "That's where the magic from the wish or whatever it was took hold. If that's where it started, there might be some residual traces that you can use to build a bridge."

Build a bridge. They had no idea how to build a bridge. Even the Ghost Portal, from what Valerie understood, wasn't exactly a bridge. It was just a hole in reality, or something like that. Because the real world and the Ghost Zone were right next to each other, a hole was all that was needed to connect them.

Or maybe she was wrong. Vlad ought to know; if he'd worked with Danny's parents in college, this probably wasn't the first he'd heard of the Ghost Portal. For all she knew, he might even have Mr. Fenton's plans to it. If he'd wanted to, he could probably build one himself.

Valerie sighed. She'd never meant for the Fentons to be drawn into this. She'd just wanted to see Phantom put in a situation where everyone else saw him like she did. But the Fentons—well, Jack and Maddie, at least—already took her side. They recognized Phantom for what he was. Jazz seemed to take Phantom's side of things more often than not, and Danny and Sam and Tucker were usually pretty quick to defend him, too. And most of the rest of the town, well…. Last she'd heard, popular vote had Phantom as a good guy.

Okay, she'd admit he'd done a few good things, but half the time it was probably just to save his own skin or defend what he thought was his territory, and the rest of the time, it was a tactic to fool everyone. Unfortunately, that seemed to be working. She couldn't be the only kid who'd had a bad experience with the ghost, the only one who'd ever seen his evil side. Heck, he'd kidnapped the mayor. Robbed a bunch of places. Sure, he denied it, came up with excuses, claimed that he was framed even though they had tons of evidence otherwise, but as much good as he did to try to make people forget about it, it didn't make up for past mistakes. And Valerie had a long memory.

"Valerie?"

"Huh?" Valerie blinked and focussed on the situation again.

"Do you have any last suggestions before we split up?" Jazz asked, clearly repeating her question.

She shook her head. "No. Sorry."

"Well, we've all got each other's numbers," Jazz said, "so if anyone finds anything, even if it's not exactly what we want, they have to tell everyone else. We don't know what will help us figure this out, so we need to take anything we can get."

And with those final words, they split into three groups and went their separate ways.

* * *

><p>"Please let this be a dream," Danny whispered. "Please let this be a dream." As much as he'd told his mom that Desiree might be behind this, he wasn't entirely disregarding the notion of Nocturne. But he hadn't exactly felt like explaining about Nocturne right now, either. His mother at least knew of Desiree, but he wasn't so sure his parents were aware of Nocturne.<p>

His mother wasn't experimenting on him. He should be thankful for that. She'd made a few comments that had made him think she might, but there hadn't been any scalpels or needles or anything like that. She hadn't cut into him and taken chunks out.

But there had still been the shocks. First that prod, and then the laser thing…. He wasn't even sure what it was called. He just knew it had _hurt_. He'd lost some ectoplasm, and he had some pretty bad burns, and….

He'd briefly wondered, if he'd been put in this situation when he could've changed back to Danny Fenton, whether he would have, or whether he'd resist it for as long as he could. He wasn't exactly sure how his mother would react. Sure, if they found out under different circumstances, he knew his parents might accept him. But to find out like this? It'd have to cause psychological scarring of some sort if his mom realized she'd been electrocuting her own son. He didn't want to do that to her. He didn't want to keep getting shocked, either, but still. She might think he'd been overshadowed, or that it was some trick on Phantom's part, or something like that—anything to keep from admitting the truth—and that could just make things worse for him.

But he didn't have that option. He was Danny Phantom, and that wasn't going to change. He just really wished he knew why. Probably the same reason he was currently strapped to a table being tortured by his mother for answers he couldn't give. Some ghost's sick idea of revenge.

Really, he hadn't thought Desiree would sink this low. Sure, she had things against him—all the local ghosts did, it seemed, with the exceptions being very few and far between—but this was really pushing it. He could see Vlad getting him into a situation like this. But Desiree? Not her. Not any more than Ember or Johnny 13 or Kitty or Spectra or Technus or even Skulker. Skulker might want his pelt, but Danny was pretty sure he wanted it intact.

Maddie Fenton had, mercifully, decided to take a brief break from the interrogation. Danny just appreciated the chance to catch his breath. Ghost or not, some part of him still needed to breathe. He knew he couldn't survive in outer space without a supply of oxygen, unlike Technus had. The little bit of human that was tucked away inside him in his ghost form demanded oxygen, and food, and everything else he needed to survive.

Danny had one goal in mind: escape. He wasn't sure how. He'd gone so far as to try freezing the stupid table, hoping it would make the straps brittle enough that he could break through with his ectoblasts, and all he'd gotten for that was another series of shocks. At least he hadn't been given something that suppressed his powers—in this state, he wasn't sure how he'd react to that—but he'd figured it was because his mother wasn't about to give him anything that might make him at all incoherent, especially when she felt she could keep him from trying anything with all those shocks. He had a feeling it would've been a whole lot easier to give his father the slip, but his mom…. It wasn't going to be easy. But he had to get away from her somehow, because he couldn't get them back home if she kept him strapped to this table, asking him questions he couldn't answer.

Of course, that was assuming he could even get them back home in the first place. If he couldn't get into the Ghost Zone, he couldn't even talk to Clockwork to find out what was going on. And if anyone knew what was going on, it would be Clockwork.

"Shall we try again, Phantom?" Maddie asked him, her words breaking through his thoughts.

Danny couldn't suppress a shudder when she picked up the weapons of torture again. "You have to let me go," he said quietly, surprised his voice wasn't raspier than it was with all the screaming he'd been doing. "You've got to believe me. I'm not the one doing this."

Maddie wore her hood now, and her goggles, and he couldn't see her eyes. He couldn't tell what she was really thinking. He couldn't see if she believed him, but he doubted she did. In her eyes, he had more things stacked against him. When he couldn't even offer up a definite villain, the person who actually was behind it all, he doubted she'd really believe him.

"I'll take you to your family," Danny promised as his mother came closer, wielding the laser thing again. "Just let me go, and we'll go find them!"

Maddie shook her head, just once. "Tell me where they are," she countered, "and I'll find them myself."

Danny sagged. "I don't _know_ where they are." He'd lost count of the number of times he'd repeated that.

"Then you couldn't take me to them if I let you go," Maddie pointed out, "or you do know where they are and you're lying to me."

The laser was switched on, and Danny started to panic. "No," he begged, "_please_, don't, you don't understand. You don't want to do this. No!"

"I have to do this," Maddie replied quietly. "I need to protect my family. So just tell me the truth, Phantom. That's all I want."

Danny wanted to argue. She _wasn't_ protecting her family. She was _torturing_ him; that wasn't _protecting_ him. But she didn't know, and she thought she was doing the right thing. She thought he was evil, she thought he was lying, she thought…. "No," Danny moaned again. Then, as the laser started to bite into his flesh again, sending pain racing through every nerve in his body, something inside him snapped, and he yelled at his mother to stop.

It emerged from his mouth as his Ghostly Wail.

Glassware shattered. Papers, tools, weapons, the forgotten plates of dinner, even cupboard doors—ripped from their hinges by the sheer force of the Wail—were sent flying. Maddie Fenton herself lost her footing and was thrown against the wall. She did not get up.

The table beneath him creaked and collapsed, and the bonds finally came free. Danny lay still for a moment, horrified. The table had been set at an angle, making it easier for his mom to poke and prod at him. He'd seen what had happened when he'd unwittingly unleashed his power.

Danny climbed onto his hands and knees and crawled over to his mother. He didn't have the energy to get to his feet, but he had to know…. He couldn't've…. No, please, oh, God, please, no, don't let….

She was still breathing.

Unconscious, but breathing. Danny eased her hood off and, while he could see swelling—she'd definitely have a goose egg after this—he didn't see any bleeding. He hoped that was a good thing, and he tried to ignore the little voice in his mind that reminded him precisely what swelling and bruising was. Sure, he couldn't see anything wrong on the surface, but he had no clue how to check her for internal injuries.

He'd dealt with a fair number of his own injuries, yes, and some of them had been quite severe. But that had always been with him. He'd always borne the brunt of any ghost attack. He made sure that Sam and Tuck, and Jazz if she was with them, were as safe as they could possibly be. He could heal faster than they could. Things were never as bad for him as they were for everyone else. So while he could check himself over and know how bad it was, he couldn't do the same for anyone else.

He didn't know how much damage he'd done.

Danny formed a bit of ice in one hand and held it gently to the swelling on his mother's head. He didn't know what else to do. He was lucky the damage to the lab wasn't worse than it was. If he hadn't been so exhausted to begin with, he could've brought the whole house down. Maybe even the whole block.

The lab was well-built, at least. It was probably the most stable room in the house. But from the groaning sounds the house was starting to make, the creaking as it shifted and settled, Danny didn't really want to take any chances. Shifting his mother into his arms, he picked her up, turned them intangible, and flew outside.

He regained tangibility the moment they cleared the walls of the house and collapsed to the ground, still weak. He wondered what he should do. He couldn't really take Maddie to the hospital, and he didn't want to leave her here, either. He'd been planning to go back to Casper High to see if he could find anything there. It was a sort of fruitless hope, but it was better than nothing. Wasn't it?

Danny sighed. At this rate, he'd be lucky to fly _himself_ anywhere, let alone his mother. The Assault Vehicle was gone, true, but Jazz's car was still here…. Okay, so he didn't really know how to drive. How hard could it be? It wasn't like he was going to hit anyone.

Except, if he remembered correctly, Jazz had the keys. They were on the same key ring as her house ones, and she carried those with her everywhere, which meant even if he tore the entire house apart looking for them, he wouldn't find them.

Crud. At this rate, he was going to have to throw his mother on his scooter and go slow and hope that the ride wasn't too bumpy. And if she woke up before they got to the school, he was definitely going to be in for it. He could check her pockets for weapons, but some were directly attached to the hazmat suit and couldn't be removed, and he didn't really want to disable them and leave her vulnerable in her next ghost fight. Well, unless the next ghost fight was against him, but he didn't want to leave her vulnerable against any other ghost.

Danny hesitated for a moment, hoping a better option would present itself. When one didn't, he found himself heading slowly towards Casper High, torn between praying his mother wouldn't wake up and praying she would. When he got there and had carried her inside, back into the school auditorium, she was still unconscious.

Suddenly, Danny would have much preferred his mother waking up before they'd made it to the school.

What had he done?

"I'm sorry," Danny whispered, applying more ice to the swelling on his mother's head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I just…. I didn't mean to. Please be okay. Please, please, _please_ be okay." A bit of searching had turned up a box of old costumes in the wings of the stage that hadn't yet made it back to the storage room, so Danny had pulled those out. Now, Maddie was lying against one of the walls, cushioned by all the costumes.

Danny swallowed. Right now, he would much rather his mother was shooting at him, telling him what a filthy piece of ectoplasm he was. He'd even…he'd even rather be strapped to that table again. Anything but just seeing her lie there…. How long had it been?

When the small piece of ice melted, Danny finally got to his feet. He'd come to look for clues. He had to start sometime. Stealing one last glance at his mother, Danny started searching for anything that might help him figure out how to get out of there.

He'd already established that, if Nocturne was behind this, a mere shock wasn't going to wake him up this time. But better to think that he was still caught in Nocturne's trap, or Desiree's, or someone's, than to think…. "Please let this be a dream."

* * *

><p>AN: So, Danny's not strapped to a table anymore. That's good, right? Thanks to everyone who has been taking the time to read and review.


	14. Chapter 14

After talking with her dad about how he and her mother—and Vlad, she supposed—had come up with the notion of a portal into the Ghost Zone, Jazz came to the reluctant conclusion that her father's genius was in the weaponry, not the science. That conclusion didn't really surprise her. She suspected that her mother fixed up some of her father's inventions, tweaking them so they worked better or had a better purpose, but Jack Fenton had invented—or at least come up with the initial idea of—the majority of the equipment her parents used.

But despite that, or perhaps because of it, it was Maddie Fenton who knew how things worked. It was Maddie who had worked out the precise details of the Ghost Portal, and it was Maddie who had perfected the Fenton Bazooka. But it was Jack, not Maddie, who was sitting in the lab of FentonWorks with Jazz, wondering how they could possibly build a bridge to the reality that still held the rest of their family.

"Even if we had a Reality Drill," Jack commented eventually as he examined a few of the weapons left in the lab, "it wouldn't do us any good. We wouldn't know where to drill. We don't know where this dimension they're in is supposed to be."

Jazz looked over her parents' calculations for the Ghost Portal again. She took after her mother, in more ways than one, and getting the highest score on the C.A.T. in the history of Casper High was the least of her accomplishments. "It would be right here," she murmured. "Here, and at the school, and probably all over town. There are connections wherever we came through." She looked up at her father again. "Even if you did get here by wishing, to grant that wish, a bridge would still have needed to have been created, even if it was just temporary."

"But how do we get it so it's not temporary?"

Jazz sighed. "I don't know. That's the trouble. It doesn't seem to follow any sense of logic. There might be a bigger pattern that I'm missing, but it looks random." Biting her lip, she scanned the list she had made again. It was comprised of what they knew and what they assumed to be true, and right now, it wasn't helping in the slightest.

"It's too bad we can't just reverse those bridge things," Jack said. He was fiddling with the switch on the Fenton Crammer. Cram. Un-cram. Cram. Un-cram. "It'd be a lot easier."

"What do you mean?" Jazz asked.

Jack shrugged. "Well, if a bridge was there once, and we could reverse things, we'd just need to put it back, not build a new one."

Jazz stared at him for a moment as his words sunk in. Maybe she'd been giving her mother too much credit after all. "Dad, that's brilliant!"

"It is?" Jack looked surprised for a moment, but then he grinned and looked smug, as if he'd known the answer all along. "Of course it is."

Jazz was nodding. "Yes, that's why Vlad said we just need the right tools to build the bridge. I kept thinking we'd need the materials, but we've already _got_ the materials. We can rebuild every bridge that's broken down, and Mom and Danny are bound to find one of them." She grabbed the phone and started dialling, saying, "We'll tell the others in case they haven't realized it already, and then we can focus on designing what we need."

* * *

><p>Vlad watched as Valerie answered the phone and talked to Jasmine. He hadn't expected the first new development to come from them. After all, the poor girl was working with her father, and Jack Fenton, well…. He was the cause of too many of Vlad's problems to think he could ever do any good in a situation like this. No, he'd thought he and Valerie would devise the ingenious plan that would save the day. Perhaps they still would. After all, they were the most qualified and had the greatest pool of resources upon which to draw.<p>

And he wasn't used to losing, even in something like this that wasn't truly a competition.

Valerie related what Jazz had said, then glanced around the lab and added, "Do you think there's anything in here that we'll find useful?"

"I don't keep a lot of useless stuff on hand," Vlad replied. Not in here, anyway. This really was a secret lab, after all. Not his _secret_ secret lab that housed his portal and the computer with the Maddie program—no need to let Valerie be aware of that—but this was a relatively small, perfectly serviceable lab for instances such as this. He'd realized early on, once Valerie had discovered that it had been him who had supplied her with her ghost hunting weapons, that the day might come when Valerie would show up for an unexpected tour, and he didn't feel that it was necessary to show her everything.

"Do we want something based on ectoplasm, do you figure?" Valerie asked, shifting on her feet. "I'm not really well-versed in this whole extra dimension reality thing."

"Neither am I," Vlad replied, sifting through a few papers that outlined early experiments, "but I imagine it might be a bit of a steep learning curve." It was unfortunate; judging by some of Daniel's comments, and the fact that he seemed to be on good terms with Clockwork, the boy had more experience with that sort of thing than he did.

Still, he needed to focus. These bridges were finicky things, from the sounds of it. Jazz had crossed one, and so had the Box Ghost. Everyone else had crossed over by utilizing some residual magic left over from the creation of the reality that was as a result of Valerie's wish, granted by Desiree. It was magic, but not solely the simple ghostly magic that was typical of Desiree's spells. This was more complex.

"Jazz said that she'd been thinking they might be able to figure something out based on how you guys created the Ghost Portal," Valerie said. "Before Mr. Fenton figured out the rebuilding thing, I mean. But do you think Jazz was looking at the right thing? I mean, it'd make sense, wouldn't it? The Ghost Zone's another dimension, and so is the place where Danny is."

"It's not as simple as that," Vlad said, still absently looking through previous design ideas. Half of them were copies of blueprints stolen from FentonWorks, but that was beside the point. He still had the genius to put them together. "The Ghost Zone and our world are mirrored, in a way. They're connected. One cannot exist without the other. This other reality isn't the same. It's temporary, and, I imagine, highly unstable. We won't have any luck trying to break into it. If we did, it might not last long enough."

The Box Ghost had told him that _he_ could build a bridge. All they needed were the right tools, and Vlad Masters was not about to let the Box Ghost, of all ghosts, be one up on him. He picked up the blueprints for the proto-portal, the one they'd designed in college. The principle was essentially the same. The proto-portal, however, had acted more like a battering ram and forced an opening into the Ghost Zone. If they were going to try anything such thing with this other reality, whatever it was, it would need to be a lot more gentle.

So, perhaps, if they tweaked a few factors, they _could_ draw upon what was left, and build things up rather than force them down. They'd need to know the exact location…. "Do you know where Jasmine crossed over?" Vlad asked, looking up at Valerie.

"I think so," Valerie said.

Vlad started gathering a few of his tools and the odd weapon or two that could be partially dismantled and fitted for a new purpose. "We're going to try something," he said, "and we'll have better luck if we are wherever she had been."

Valerie looked surprised. "You think you know what to do?"

"Not exactly," Vlad replied, "but we'll do more good if we fiddle there than if we fiddle here. We'll know if we get it right that way." He passed her a bag full of things they might need and started filling another for himself. They were going to figure this out, one way or another. Of all the Fentons, he would much rather that it had been Jack who had found himself stuck in a failing reality. The situation would have been much less urgent then. But as it was Maddie, and Daniel…. Vlad wasn't going to take any chances.

Besides, even if Daniel wouldn't appreciate what he was doing, even if he would just call him a 'seriously crazed-up fruit loop' again and accuse him of having ulterior motives, Vlad wasn't going to sit back and let someone else destroy the young halfa. If nothing else, Daniel had helped save him before, and debts had to be repaid. Eventually. And, since Vlad hoped to incur more debts in the future until Daniel finally came around, well…. It was time he did something nice for once.

Even if he was, according to Daniel, his arch-enemy.

* * *

><p>Sam stopped when they got to the school. She glanced at the place where she'd last seen the Booo-merang, but it was gone, and she vaguely recalled Tucker saying he'd taken it back inside. It didn't matter. It hadn't given them any answers. All they'd learned from it was that they couldn't get to Danny, but that was the same thing that Clockwork had told them. Danny Phantom couldn't be helped by his friends.<p>

She and Tucker weren't going to be doing any good at all, then.

"Let's start inside," Tucker said. "It's a smaller area."

"We don't know what we're looking for," Sam reminded him automatically.

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean we won't find something."

Sam didn't comment, but she followed Tucker inside. He was right, but she didn't really think they'd find anything. Not without help, anyway. She'd still try—she'd try anything to help Danny—but she wasn't as hopeful as she should have been.

Normally, she'd chalk that up to being a Goth. Hope and happiness weren't exactly her stock and trade. But with Danny…. It was different with Danny. It'd be different with Tucker, too, of course. They were her best friends. She just….

She was worried, and she was finding it really hard to pretend she wasn't. Well, to pretend that she wasn't as worried as she actually was, at any rate. Yes, there was a light at the end of the previously dark tunnel. Yes, they had some answers. They knew where Danny was. They knew why. They knew it was possible to get him back. They knew what needed to be done. They just didn't know how to do it.

And, well, Clockwork's words were coming back to haunt her.

How could she and Tucker help Danny if he couldn't be helped by his friends? How were they supposed to do anything? The spell had to run its course. The wish had to be granted. They couldn't change that. That's what Clockwork had said.

He'd also said that they didn't follow the rules, probably implying that they wouldn't be doing that this time. But what did that mean, anyway? What hint was he trying to give them? That was assuming he was trying to give them a hint, of course, but Clockwork wasn't exactly on Danny's enemy list. He was one of the good guys.

When Sam's phone rang, she was relieved. Maybe it was some of the help they needed. Glancing at the display, she saw it was Jazz. That was a bit surprising, actually, considering what Clockwork had said. Jazz might be family, but she definitely counted as one of Danny Phantom's friends. "Hello?"

Jazz's explanation wasn't much to go on, Sam had to admit, but it was something. Rebuilding a bridge had to be easier than building one from scratch, right? But the fact remained that they still had no idea how, and that wasn't exactly comforting. Neither was the fact that it had been Jack, not Jazz, who had realized this. That meant, technically, that Clockwork's words were still true: only Danny Phantom's enemies were helping.

There was definitely something unfair about that.

Tucker was checking the walls for who knew what, but Sam had stalled out at the table filled with FentonWorks weapons. "I wish we had some help," she whispered. It was silly. They _did_ have help. It wasn't just her and Tucker. There was Jazz, and Valerie, and Mr. Fenton, and even Vlad. But it didn't feel like enough. It didn't…. None of them knew much more than anyone else.

Laughter split the air, and Sam recognized it immediately as Desiree's. With practiced ease, she grabbed an ectogun from the table, whirled around, and took aim.

The wishing ghost held up both hands in surrender when Sam—and Tucker, Sam realized out of the corner of her eye—turned on her. "I didn't mean for it to happen this way," she said. "And so, as you have wished it, so it shall be."

Sam cocked one eyebrow. "Meaning?" She lowered the ectogun, just slightly, but not far enough away that she couldn't still hit the ghost if she needed to.

"Isn't it obvious?" Desiree returned. "I've come to help."

"Really?" Tucker asked. "Why? I mean, you had to have been coming here before Sam even made that wish, right? So why come to help?"

Desiree crossed her arms in a huff. "If you must know, it's required. But," she added quickly as Sam raised the ectogun again, "after what Clockwork showed me, I want to."

"What'd he show you?" Sam asked.

Desiree shook her head. "You don't want to know. Just trust me, it's better if you don't shoot me. I'm going to be helping you, whether you like it or not."

It was probably part of her punishment, Sam realized. Like how the Box Ghost had essentially had community service after the fiasco with Pandora's Box. Whatever it was, it wasn't because of her wish. Desiree hadn't granted that wish, or at least not gained any power by offering her services like she would've otherwise, and she wasn't twisting the wish, either. It really looked like she genuinely was going to help clean up the mess she'd created.

But it wasn't just Desiree's compliance that worried Sam. It was the fact that she was clearly quite _willing_ to help. Because of whatever Clockwork had shown her. Was it Danny's future? Well, whatever his future was now, providing they got him out of there? Was it the future if they didn't?

Was it the present, showing what Danny was going through now?

Sam dropped the ectogun onto the table and closed her eyes. She hated feeling helpless. She'd wanted help, and she'd gotten exactly what she wanted: help from someone who knew more than they did. But still, considering the source…. It wasn't Skulker or anyone who showed up on an all-too-regular basis, and Desiree wasn't that high on Danny's enemy list, all things considered, even though she _had_ nearly wiped away his life as a half ghost for good by granting an ill-timed wish on Sam's part, and she clearly had the power to do more bad stuff, like this, but…. But it was just more support for Clockwork's words.

_Danny Phantom cannot be helped by his friends_.

* * *

><p>Maddie Fenton cracked open one eye, just slightly, and watched. Phantom was, as far as she could tell, inspecting the walls of the school auditorium. For what, she didn't know. She hadn't figured that part out yet. She'd come to at some point during the move to Casper High. She'd still been groggy from Phantom's attack, but it didn't take much to realize that the ghost boy had had the nerve to steal her son's scooter.<p>

It didn't make sense to her, really. Phantom could have put her with the rest of her family, wherever that was, or he could have flown her here. Of course, she didn't see why Phantom would bring her, his enemy, to a place filled with weapons that could be used against him, either. That had piqued her curiosity, and she'd seen the value in playing possum, so she had.

What she'd learned from her observation—and eavesdropping, when Phantom chose to talk to himself—didn't make much sense. From what she could tell, though, Phantom was playing out some sort of delusion. She wasn't sure why he'd picked her family—perhaps they'd reminded him of what he'd had when he'd been alive, as he was clearly a ghost created from post-human consciousness rather than one of pure ectoplasm formed through an amalgamation process—but whatever the reason, she was going to make sure he never picked them to participate in his little games again. He might think he was playing at heroics, but his hold on his delusion was frightening. When she'd tried to get him to see the truth, when she'd tried to get him to admit to taking her family, when she'd tried to find out where they were, what he'd done with them, he'd attacked her.

He acted remorseful, of course. She wasn't entirely sure why, given that he hadn't been aware he'd had an audience, but she imagined that it was because he could pretend that he was good, as he wanted so many people of Amity Park to believe. She'd admit the ice probably had taken the swelling on her head down a bit, but the fact remained that he was the only reason she was injured.

If she weren't so worried about her family, about Jack and Jazz and Danny, she'd use this opportunity to truly study Phantom. For all that he was spotted almost daily in Amity Park, she didn't know too much about him. He usually managed to elude them one way or another.

But now…. Experimenting could come later. Right now, she just wanted to be back with her family. She wanted to see all of them again and see for herself that they were safe and sound. But the only way she could do that would be to convince Phantom to admit to what he had done and release her from this, whatever this was. That hadn't gone over very well.

When Phantom looked suitably distracted, Maddie crept slowly towards the FentonWorks booth. She and Jack had left enough behind for her to use. There was even, she noticed, a Fenton Bazooka. If she kept it on the right setting, she could use it as an ectogun, and it would pack a better punch than any of the ectoguns that were on the table. That was just as well; this was one time she had no desire to send the ghost back to the Ghost Zone.

Not yet, anyway.

So, ignoring the throbbing of her head, Maddie collected a small arsenal of weapons and crawled along the front of the stage, keeping a watchful eye on Phantom, who was busy at the back of the auditorium. She reached a pile of boxes, snuck in the gap behind them, and began preparing her battle plan.

* * *

><p>Things weren't looking too good. Danny hadn't been able to find <em>anything <em>remotely promising. Well, nothing that he'd been able to recognize as promising. He wasn't really too good at this sort of thing. He needed help. If Tucker were here, he'd have run some sort of simulation on his PDA and would've figured out what they needed. Sam would probably have worked out the solution without that, pointing out something obvious that he and Tuck had missed. Jazz would've worked out the theory behind it all by now, even if she hadn't been able to solve the problem.

This was sort of why he needed his mother's help. He wasn't the genius in the family, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Danny, wondering if Maddie had woken up yet, glanced back to see how she was doing.

She was gone.

Danny sunk back to the floor immediately, his heart heavy. He'd had a bit of time to rest now, yes, so he had more energy than when he'd gotten to the school, but Maddie was gone. He was the only one left. He was trapped here, alone. Completely isolated, cut off from everyone else. No humans, no ghosts, and not so much as a cricket to be heard outside.

That was when he heard the quiet whine of a weapon powering up.

Danny shot back into the air, looking around. Okay, his mother wasn't gone. That was good, right? She was still here. She could still help him. They could still figure this out.

He just needed to convince her that he wasn't the enemy.

Easier said than done.

The first blast came from the opposite corner of the room, from the boxes he'd hidden behind earlier with Sam and Tucker. A second blast quickly followed the first, and Danny knew he needed to move. He just needed a bit more time to figure this all out. He needed to figure out what to say, how to make it clear that he wasn't the one behind this. Turning intangible, he shot straight up and settled on the roof of the school.

Somehow, being hunted by his mother wasn't much better than being stuck in the lab with her. For all that he was a ghost, he still seemed to be at a distinct disadvantage. He knew what his parents thought about ghosts. He knew they didn't care if the ghosts got hurt at all by their inventions.

Danny swallowed. It was dark out now. He hadn't realized how much time had passed when he'd been in the school. The sun had only just been setting when they'd arrived, hadn't it? He couldn't really remember. At least the sick, twisting feeling in his gut kept any hunger that he might've been feeling at bay. Of course, when he was in his ghost mode, he didn't need as much food, but he'd still spent, what, half the day as Danny Fenton? He hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday, and a few ill-timed ghost attacks had meant he hadn't gotten as much as he might've.

Danny buried his face in his gloved hands. "Please let this be a dream," he muttered. This being a dream was infinitely more preferable to this being reality.

He needed to keep moving, though. He couldn't stay up here. His mother was probably on her way to the roof right now, anyway. And he still needed to figure out what to say and how to say it.

Danny flew over the side of the roof and hovered against one wall, sticking to the shadows. He wasn't by a main doorway, or by windows, and he _shouldn't_ be easy to see from the roof. Not unless his mother checked every corner, anyway. And she didn't know he was sticking around here. For all she knew, he could be halfway across town. That would normally be an excellent idea, but he couldn't go too far when he really needed to talk to her.

Valerie had put their differences aside and worked with him. Surely his mom could do the same, just until they got out of this?

Danny turned invisible, just in case. But he was still tired, and he wasn't sure how long he could hold it for. With his luck, it wouldn't be long enough.

He'd have to ignore the little fact that he'd been strapped to a table earlier. He'd have to ignore the fact that he'd already hurt his mother, albeit unintentionally. She was going to be expecting Danny Phantom to be his usual cocky self, and if he was, then maybe she wouldn't think he was lying when he told her the truth this time. Maybe she wouldn't think it was just some desperate attempt to escape. After all, if he wanted to escape her, he could just fly away now. If he stuck around, if he tried to talk to her…. Wouldn't she listen?

Danny lost his hold on his invisibility. Crud. He was too tired to keep it for too long, and he hadn't really built up the endurance for it. On the upside, he hadn't heard his mother walking around the roof. On the downside, that meant he had no idea where she was.

He held his breath for a moment, listening hard. He'd hear her before she found him, wouldn't he? If he paid attention? If he just listened?

An all-too-familiar whine of weaponry, this one louder than the previous one, caught his attention again, and he barely had time to dodge the blast as it came. Most of his half-formed thoughts of what to say flew out of his head, but he tried to reason with his mother anyway. It felt like he was just repeating himself, repeating everything he'd told her back in the lab. But even when he tried telling her—again—that they needed to work together, all she did was fire at him.

He took refuge inside the school again. He had no doubt she'd follow him, but that was just as well. Even if he had to blast every weapon to pieces just so that she'd listen to him, he would. He just…. He needed his mom. She couldn't comfort him, not about this, but he needed her to listen to him.

Even if it was just a temporary truce, he'd take it; anything was better than this.

* * *

><p>AN: So, we _finally_ caught up with the story and are right where we came into it before hastily backtracking. Now we just get to see how it all ends up…. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to review!


	15. Chapter 15

To Maddie, it felt like she and Phantom were playing a game of cat and mouse. Trouble was, she wasn't certain who was playing which role. Phantom was acting like she had the upper hand, not him, and yet he was the reason she was here in the first place. Furthermore, she couldn't understand why he didn't just run. Why keep heading into the school? He wasn't blind, and she wasn't foolish enough to think him idiotic. He knew there were weapons in there, things she could use against him, and she doubted he knew precisely which weapons she'd removed from the FentonWorks booth, anyway.

What was clear, however, was that Phantom didn't feel like changing his story. Well, she'd show him. She hadn't been thinking clearly earlier, but she was now—or, at least, she was as much as her throbbing head was allowing her to.

Maddie powered the Fenton Bazooka down. If she was right, if this worked, she wouldn't need it. Not immediately, anyway, and she'd have plenty of time to get it ready again.

Phantom was back in the auditorium, floating up near the stage, immediately visible. The FentonWorks booth, Maddie noted as she came closer, was clear of its weapons. Whether Phantom had moved them or blasted them to pieces, she didn't know, and right now, she didn't care, either. It had probably been a move to show her that she wasn't as powerful as he figured she thought she was, but he was wrong.

She still had the upper hand.

"Please, can we just talk?" Phantom asked when he spotted her. He looked hopeful.

Maddie placed the Fenton Bazooka down gently on the table, watching as relief seemed to flood Phantom. The ghost was a good actor; she'd give him that. She tucked one hand into her pocket, noting with relief that she did still have what she wanted, and rested the other on her hip, near the Wraith Wrangler. "All right," she said, looking up at Phantom. "Let's talk."

He drifted down and hovered at her eye level. "Um, without weapons?" he asked.

"You seemed to have disposed of most of them," she said.

Phantom rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, and Maddie's heart wrenched as she was reminded of her son. "I kind of thought you wouldn't agree," he said. "I figured it was best to take precautions."

He thought he'd try to cut off her supply of weapons, while he, being a ghost, would never be caught unarmed. Maddie frowned but merely nodded. Let him think she was going along with it, and she might get a bit of truth out of him.

"I wasn't lying before," he said. "I know you think I was, but I wasn't, and I'm still not. I really don't know who is behind this. Like I told you, it might be Desiree. It might also be another ghost, Nocturne. He's the ghost of sleep and dreams and nightmares and stuff. I've fought him before, but this isn't like last time, so if it is him, he's changed his game a bit." Phantom was still doing a phenomenal job of looking nervous. "Those two are my best guesses, but it might be someone else, too. There're a lot of ghosts, and most of them seem to be against me."

"So you don't have many friends," Maddie said bluntly. In truth, she figured Phantom was talking about alliances, since ghosts seemed to be either allies or enemies, but from what she did know about Phantom, he would be more liable to call his allies friends. It fit in with his fabricated image of being a good ghost rather than one that fought in battles where he _needed_ allies to win.

Phantom gave her a shaky, crooked smile. "Not really," he said.

"Then I'm surprised," Maddie said, pulling the Ecto-Entrapper out of her pocket, "that you aren't more used to subterfuge." She pressed the button, activating Jack's invention, and dropped it at Phantom's feet. It was just lucky that Jack had insisted they'd take it along and that he'd shoved his bag of weaponry at her when he'd taken the wheel of the Assault Vehicle. She'd taken it then, intending to leave it in the lab, thinking they could perhaps study it once they had Phantom and were questioning him—she did want to see its effects on more ghosts, after all—and had forgotten to remove it, so she still had it with her now.

Luck, it appeared, really was with her for once. It appeared to be working. That, or the ghost boy was going to burst out laughing before he flew away.

As it was, however, no such thing happened. Instead, Phantom froze. For a minute, he just looked at her, disbelief written all over his face.

And then he sneezed.

Maddie picked up the Fenton Bazooka again. Judging by Phantom's wide eyes, he wasn't going anywhere. She primed the weapon again and levelled it at his chest. "Let's try this talking thing again, shall we?"

Phantom glanced at the Ecto-Entrapper, then back at her. "I think I'm allergic to that," he said. This statement was followed by another sneeze, as if to prove his point.

Maddie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked Phantom in the eye. "I don't know why you think this is funny," she said quietly. "I don't know why you think this is a game."

"I don't!"

"I don't know," Maddie continued loudly, "why you picked my family. I don't know why you're toying with lives. What I do know, Phantom, is that it has gone on for long enough. Stop this, right now. No more lies, no more games."

Phantom stared back at her with wide, bright green eyes. Then he closed them and shook his head, his shoulders slumping. "I can't tell you what you want to hear," he mumbled, staring at the Ecto-Entrapper on the floor instead of at her. "It's not true, and lying isn't going to fix this mess."

"Lying never fixes anything," Maddie informed him shortly.

Phantom looked up at her again, opened his mouth, and seemed to reconsider his words. After a moment, he said, "Just think about it. You're a genius, Maddie. Made the cover of Genius Magazine, didn't you? You—"

"How did you know about that?" Maddie asked.

Phantom faltered. "Uh, um, I just…saw it. Once. You know, when I was passing through somewhere. It doesn't matter." He shook his head and continued, "Like I said, just think about it. If I was behind this, why would I trap myself with a family of ghost hunters and make them mad at me? I don't have a death wish."

"You're already dead."

"You know what I mean," Phantom said. "Besides, if I could control this, you wouldn't've caught me back home."

"Back home?" Maddie repeated, arching an eyebrow.

"Back at your home," Phantom quickly corrected.

"And why were you there, anyway? Trying to raid our lab? Get through the Ghost Portal to gather reinforcements?"

Phantom shook his head, then stopped, reconsidered, and said, "I was trying to get through Ghost Portal," he said. "I was lucky. Someone left it unlocked, so, you know, getting it open wasn't any trouble, but that wasn't my problem. I couldn't get _into_ the Ghost Zone. Every time I went through the portal, I just came back out into the lab."

Now it was Maddie's turn to stare at Phantom, searching his face for a sign of truth. She'd thought the Ghost Portal had been locked, but she remembered seeing the flickering of the radar screen when she and Jack had been heading to FentonWorks. _Ghosts lie_, a voice reminded her, but she ignored it. Against her better judgement, Maddie put the Fenton Bazooka aside again and looked at Phantom. "How many times did you try?" she asked.

"Five," Phantom admitted, looking a bit sheepish.

Five times. Five times the radar screen had flickered. Five times she'd thought it had glitched. If Phantom was telling the truth, it had been working perfectly after all. Either he had more control over this realm than she'd anticipated or he really was as helpless as he'd claimed. Maybe he really _wasn't_ behind this.

But if he didn't know any more than she did….

"Maddie? Are you okay?"

The tentative voice brought her back to reality, and Maddie nodded. "Yes. I'm fine."

Phantom looked worried. "I didn't mean to hurt you," he said. "Back at the lab. I didn't…. I don't like that power. I mean, it's probably the most powerful one I've got, but…. I don't like it."

Maddie's head twinged at the thought. "What was that, anyway?" she asked. If Phantom was willing to tell her, she might as well collect what information she could. It certainly wasn't a power she'd witnessed him using before. Wasn't it? She vaguely recalled a similar howling last Christmas, when the trees had been attacking, and then she'd found Danny…. Had Phantom helped save Danny?

"It's my Ghostly Wail," Phantom said. "But it takes a lot of energy, and I'm still tired from using it." He drifted down to the floor and sat beside the Ecto-Entrapper. Why he didn't try to fling it away, Maddie wasn't sure. A sign of trust, perhaps? Unless he was making the entire thing up, it didn't make sense for it to be a show of strength. "I was pretty weak in the lab," he added. "There wasn't much to that one."

Despite that statement, Maddie joined him on the floor. Something told her that he hadn't meant it to be a threat, that he wasn't gloating about how powerful he could be. He was just stating a fact, something that he didn't sound too proud of. Or was that a touch of fear in his voice? That wouldn't make sense. It wasn't like Phantom would be afraid of the responsibility of that power. He ought to be lording it over the other ghosts, but—

But he didn't. She hadn't seen him use it before today; if it _had_ been him at Christmas, that didn't really count. She hadn't actually experienced it like she had now. But she had no doubt that he'd be able to defeat most of the ghosts that frequented Amity Park easily if he simply used that power, even if it did take a lot of his energy. He might even have been able to take them on all at once. And yet, despite that, he never used it.

"Do you believe me now?" Phantom asked.

"I don't seem to have much choice," Maddie replied. Phantom looked crestfallen, so she added, "But I'd believe you anyway, yes."

It wasn't until after he'd brightened again that she realized she was starting to treat him like a human, like one of Danny's friends, rather than the ghost he actually was.

"Thanks," Phantom said, toying with his hands in his lap. "That means a lot." He looked up at her again and smiled. "Really."

For the moment, Maddie didn't care that she was sitting down with a ghost and having a decent conversation. For the moment, it didn't matter that she could have shot Phantom numerous times by now and hadn't lifted a finger to do so. Because, for the moment, she trusted him. And she realized that it wasn't just because she had to or she might never see her family again.

"Can you tell me again," Maddie asked carefully, "what you do know about this situation?"

And Phantom, looking relieved, happily complied.

* * *

><p>Tucker stared at Desiree, completely at a loss. He was grateful for the help, providing she was sincere, but judging from what they'd seen at Clockwork's, he figured she'd be in for it if she wasn't. But now she was just sort of waving her hands and there was the occasional crackle of light between them, and despite what she'd said, it didn't look like she was doing anything that remotely resembled helping.<p>

Sam evidently felt this way, too, since she asked, "What are you even doing?"

"Checking the strength of the spell," Desiree said. She stopped for a moment and looked at them. "It's getting weaker. The realm Danny Phantom is in won't hold much longer."

Tucker's mouth felt dry. "We don't have long to get him out then, do we?"

Desiree shook her head. "The spell has to run its course. The wish has to be granted. I can't change that."

"But what if it _doesn't_?" Sam retorted. "What if the spell can't run its course because the wish isn't granted because—"

"It _is_ being granted," Desiree interrupted, sounding testy. "In case you've forgotten, I grant wishes."

"Yeah, well," Sam groused, "I don't see you getting more powerful after granting this one."

Desiree sighed, but when she started to speak, it became clear to Tucker that she really was trying to help instead of just putting up some sort of show. Even if it was only because she had to. "I don't expect you to understand, but—"

"I understand plenty," Sam snapped. "Danny and his mom are going to _die_ because of something _you_ did, and _Tuck and I can't help him because we're his friends_!" The last words came out as a rush, and for a minute there, Tucker wondered if she was going to start sobbing.

That would be…awkward. Sam wasn't really the sobbing type of girl. And, anyway, if she was going to start something like that, Danny should be the one to deal with it. Those two lovebirds were going to have to wake up one of these days and accept the truth.

"I've been punished," Desiree said shortly. "I'm still being punished."

"Punished or reprimanded?" Sam asked. "Because it looks to me like you just got a slap on the wrist and were told not to do it again."

"Punished," Desiree repeated. She didn't elaborate, and Sam didn't ask, and Tucker definitely didn't want to get involved in that argument. Eventually, Desiree added, "I broke a law, not just the rules. I don't just have Walker breathing down my neck. I want to see Danny Phantom back here just as much as you do."

"But you're just helping us because you have to."

"I'm helping because I know what will happen if I don't," Desiree said quietly, "and I don't want to take that risk."

"What's the risk?" Sam challenged. "What would happen if you left Danny there to rot like you want to?"

"You don't want to know," Desiree said, reiterating her earlier words. The anger was still a sharp edge in her voice, but at least she was containing it. She probably _did_ have a bunch of threats hanging over her head right now. "Now listen to me, you insolent human. I need you to make sure everything is set up the way it was. It'll make the transition easier."

Sam glanced around the auditorium. "It is set up the way it was."

"Not really," Tucker said, cringing when Sam glared at him. "I mean, we took some weapons with us and moved some things around, and the Box Ghost took the boxes."

"Okay, fine, so it's not exactly the same, but I don't remember what it was like before." She shot a sidelong look at Desiree. "But you know what? I don't have to. I _wish_ things were the way they were before."

"This morning," Tucker quickly corrected, knowing how many ways Desiree could twist Sam's words and knowing that the wishing ghost wasn't exactly endeared towards Sam at the moment.

"Before this morning," Sam added, "after you granted Valerie's wish, right before the Fentons disappeared."

Desiree shot them both an exasperated look. "So you have wished it, so shall it be," she said monotonously, gathering power in one hand before releasing it with a bright flash.

Tucker glanced around, noting that everything was back in place, and saw Sam doing the same. "Well, that was easy," Sam said. "No tricks up your sleeve that time?"

"Not that time," Desiree answered, sounding a bit bitter.

Tucker spotted the Fenton Thermos and walked over to pick it up. "So is the Box Ghost in here again?"

"No," Desiree said shortly. "It's horrible in there. You can't keep your form, and if there are any other ghosts in there with you…." She shuddered, clearly remembering a few bad experiences. "I wouldn't even wish it on the Box Ghost."

"That bad, huh?" Tucker said, looking the thermos over.

"Yeah, real shame it doesn't come in another size," Sam said. "What else needs to be done, if you're the expert?"

"You need to build a bridge," Desiree said. "And before you open your mouth, it's not as easy as wishing for one."

"And tell me again why we can't just stick you in the thermos and cut off your magic?" Sam asked. "That usually works pretty well when it comes to reversing any of the wishes you've granted." Desiree didn't answer, and Tucker figured it was because she knew they already knew the answer. If it were as simple as that, this whole thing would've been over when Clockwork had caught her and she'd been handed over to the Observants.

"So how do we actually build a bridge?" Tucker asked. "No one's told us how to do it. They just said we had to."

Desiree looked honestly surprised. "You're human. It should be easier for you, especially when there are a lot of you. Your emotions are stronger. That's what you use."

"Our emotions?" Sam repeated, looking extremely sceptical.

"I thought you'd met Penelope Spectra," Desiree said. "More than once, from what I understood. We may not all feed off human emotions as directly as she does, but you can't deny how useful they are."

"Hold on, you _all_ feed off emotions?" Sam made a face. "Oh, gross."

Desiree rolled her eyes. "We can if we need to. But the point is, your emotions are the only thing strong enough to penetrate the wild magic and take hold. Do you know my story? Do you know how I became a wishing ghost? Do you know who I was before?"

"A harem girl," Tucker said. "Danny told us. He'd asked Madam Babazita. And Clockwork told us about the whole old magic thing."

"Yes," Desiree said. "That's right. I died of a broken heart. Emotion was the death of me."

"And old age," Sam put in.

Desiree ignored that. "But this wish was made out of jealousy and anger and frustration, and it was very easy to bind it with the wild magic. And wishes granted like that become permanent after a time, so they're never as simple to reverse as isolating the source of the spell." She looked at Tucker, a slight smirk on her face. "I wouldn't think that you'd forget something like that."

Sam shot him a curious look. "What's she talking about?"

"Nothing!" Tucker said quickly. "Nothing at all. You know. Nothing. Just a little misunderstanding that happened the first time Danny and I ran into her. You know, that time you had a rotten cold. But it was fine. Nothing happened."

Sam's face told him she didn't believe a word of that. "Right." Looking back at Desiree, she said, "So, we need to use emotions. How?"

"You focus them," Desiree said.

"But it can't be as simple as that," Sam protested. "Clockwork said Danny Phantom couldn't be helped by his friends."

Desiree shrugged. "Maybe he can't. Not if you're trying to act alone. It'll take more than just the two of you to build a strong enough bridge," she said. "And, anyway, the bridge alone isn't enough. Even if it's there, Danny Phantom can't cross it until the wish is granted."

"But you said it was granted," Tucker said.

"I said it was _being_ granted," corrected Desiree. "But if it doesn't get resolved in time, having a bridge to cross won't help him."

Sam and Tucker exchanged looks. "How long have we got?"

"I don't know for certain," Desiree said, "but I'd guess midnight."

Sam looked relived. "Okay, that's better than I thought."

"Midnight for Danny Phantom," Desiree added.

Now Sam looked worried again. "And what time is it there now?"

"Mr. Fenton had said it was after supper," Tucker said. "And that was easily an hour ago for us."

But Sam was still looking at Desiree. "Well?" she demanded.

Desiree crossed her arms. "I don't know everything," she said. "I can't break into it without destroying anything. I've tried. I don't know what's going on or exactly how everything's playing out. I've told you all I know. I can't help you with anything else."

Sam grabbed her phone, and Tucker reached for his. "You call Jazz," he said. "I'll call Val. We can get everyone to meet us here."

Sam nodded, already dialling. When the phone was up to her ear, she looked at Desiree. "Thanks," she said quietly.

"You can tell Danny Phantom," Desiree said, "that even his enemies will work with him if we need to, if he can convince us we should."

"What?" Tucker asked, in sync with Sam, but Desiree had already vanished.

* * *

><p>AN: I'm sorry, Desiree was giving me a lot of trouble for this chapter, and she's still not quite in character (though, she's had the wind taken out of her sails, so perhaps she's not supposed to be….). I also have the distinct feeling that more than a handful of you saw through me with the Ecto-Entrapper being the reason Danny's stuck in ghost mode, but no one explicitly mentioned it, so I'll pretend I still managed to string a few people along. Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews!


	16. Chapter 16

Valerie's phone rang roughly five minutes after she and Vlad had reached the alley. Valerie was pretty sure it was the one Jazz had come through, seeing as it was the only one nearby, and Jazz had said she'd come from the alley, and she'd pointed in this direction, so this had to be it. Of course, it didn't look any different than the last time Valerie had been in it—sometime last week when she'd needed to activate her ghost hunting gear before chasing down Phantom—but that didn't mean she wasn't missing something.

"Jasmine again?" Vlad asked as Valerie looked at her phone.

Valerie shook her head. "Tucker," she said as she flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Tucker?" Vlad repeated. "Oh, cheese logs. I thought we'd be the next ones to find something."

Valerie waved him off. "Hello?" Then, after a few seconds, when she apparently still received no response, Valerie continued, "Tucker? Are you there? Did you figure something out? Tuck?"

"_Meet us at school,"_ Tucker finally replied.

"What's going on?" Valerie asked. "What did you guys find out?"

"_Just hurry,"_ was all Tucker said, and then the line went dead.

"Tucker said to meet them at the school," Valerie reported. "And to hurry. He didn't say why."

"Probably had the same idea I did," Vlad said sourly. "Very well. We'd best go."

"I'll call Jazz and tell her we'll pick them up," Valerie said. "They're on the way. It'll be faster."

Vlad closed his eyes, then opened them and smiled at her. "Of course. Excellent thinking," he said, even though he didn't sound particularly happy about the idea. Valerie figured it was because of Mr. Fenton. For all that Danny's dad seemed to be Vlad's biggest supporter, Vlad seemed to find Jack more annoying than useful. On the campaign trail, at least. But since Vlad had won by a landslide, Valerie figured Jack Fenton hadn't done anything particularly bad. The worst he'd done was embarrass Danny, and probably Jazz, too.

It didn't take long to relay the message to Jazz, who had just talked to Sam. She wasn't sure what Sam and Tucker had found, either, but she and Jack had been intending to grab her car and head to the school. When Valerie had offered to give them a lift at Vlad's expense, Jazz had laughed and accepted. She'd said her father would be delighted, and from the tone of her voice, Valerie suspected she knew just how much that would annoy Vlad. Just what did Jazz and Danny have against him, anyway? It wasn't like he was the bad guy.

It didn't matter. It wasn't really her business, anyway.

It wasn't long before the four of them were at the school. Jazz had chattered to Valerie about all the things Sam and Tucker might have figured out on the way, and Jack was still talking to Vlad about ghosts and protecting Amity Park and suggesting more measures that Vlad could implement as mayor, but thankfully, Vlad ignored him. Valerie had heard a few of Jack's suggestions, and she preferred things the way they were. The one time _she_ had been upset with Vlad was when he had implemented a long list of protocols that had made the life of every teenager in Amity Park miserable. She'd already moved to Elmerton by then, of course, but she still went to Casper High, and she'd lost her job at the Nasty Burger until the protocols had been repealed.

They found Sam and Tucker in the auditorium. "What's going on?" Valerie asked when they got there. "What did you figure out?"

"How to build a bridge," Tucker said, and the others quieted at his words, listening.

"We have to use our emotions," Sam continued. "We need to focus them, and, um…." She trailed off, looking at Tucker.

"I think it's just an emotional thing," Tucker said. "The bridge isn't physical. It's just something that can break into the reality that Danny and Mrs. Fenton are in and give them a way to get out."

"But they won't know where it is," Jazz pointed out.

"I think that as long as they have a stable path, it doesn't matter," Tucker said. "I mean, emotions are flexible, right? It ought to turn up wherever they are in time."

"But they won't know about it," Jazz said.

"Neither did you," Sam reminded her, "and you just crossed an unstable bridge that degraded the second you got back. But speaking of time, we really do need to hurry. We've got until midnight, for them."

Jack checked his watch. "It's eight," he said.

Sam shook her head. "Past eight," she corrected. "You've been here for a while now. If your watch would've kept time, Jazz's would read the same."

"She's right," Jazz said. "We might not have a lot of time. Come on, let's just sit down and start sorting this out. If we're building a bridge from our emotions, we'll have to stop hiding them from each other."

Valerie smirked and looked over at Sam and Tucker. "So that's why Danny keeps saying Jazz is going to be a psychologist."

"She's been worse than this," Sam said bluntly. "But she's right." Sam dropped down to the floor, beside Jazz, and Tucker and Valerie joined her. Jack came next, and then Vlad, though he was clearly reluctant.

Valerie figured that after so many years of schooling his emotions to be such a great businessman, Vlad might have a bit of trouble admitting just how worried he was about the two remaining Fentons. She somehow doubted you could be family friends for that long without having such a strong connection. And that sort of connection was just what they needed.

That's what friendship was, wasn't it? Connections? Bridges between people? Bonds that tied them together? That's what they needed now, more than anything. That's how they could put things right.

* * *

><p>Danny finished telling his mother—again—what he knew. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. He was hoping that, between the two of them, they could figure this out.<p>

"There's one thing I don't understand," Maddie finally said. "If this wishing holds true for everyone except for you, why wasn't I taken to Danny when I wished it?"

Danny opened his mouth, hoping to come up with a good excuse. Anything was better than having her realize the truth. "Um, maybe you aren't affected, either, for some reason?"

"That's a fairly easy theory to test," Maddie said. "I wi—"

"Or maybe," Danny interrupted quickly, "it was because, um, Danny was in transit at that moment? Between here and back in the real world?"

Maddie shook her head. "He was the first one to disappear. You did find his cell phone, after all."

"He might've dropped it," Danny suggested, though the excuse sounded weak even to his ears.

Maddie sighed. "He's not as absentminded as he used to be," she said. "And he's not as clumsy, either. Where did you find it again?"

"Uh, um, well…." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "Near your house?" he ventured. He cringed at the look on his mother's face. "I was scoping all of Amity Park, so I was kind of in the neighbourhood. It was the first out-of-place thing I found." He really, really hoped his mother didn't call his bluff now. He had been scoping Amity Park, yes, and looking for signs of life, but he'd had his cell phone until he'd dropped it and his dad had picked it up after Jazz had disappeared.

"So you picked it up because it looked out of place?"

"I was going to return it," Danny said, "once I found out for sure whose it was."

"But why?"

"Because someone lost it," Danny said slowly, "and returning it is the right thing to do."

Silence.

Then, "You honestly believe that?"

Coming from his mother, that was a surprising question. She'd drilled that into him and Jazz since they were little. "Yeah," Danny said.

"But ghosts don't have morals."

Oh. That explained it. "Okay, I'll admit some of them really don't seem like they do," Danny said, "but I do. Not all ghosts are evil, you know."

A chuckle. "You've done some pretty bad things in the past, Phantom. Not everyone is going to forgive and forget those incidents as easily as others."

"I can explain," Danny said. "I can explain all of them. The mayor thing? I was framed by another ghost, Walker. He runs the jail in the Ghost Zone. This part of the Ghost Zone, at least. I don't know how many others there are. And the robberies weren't really my fault, either. I was being controlled. And Christmas wasn't, well…." He trailed off. "I mean, I'll admit I've done a few stupid things that are my own fault, but nothing that bad, and I can guarantee that I've learned more than a few lessons."

Maddie looked unconvinced, but at least she didn't challenge him—and he'd managed to suitably distract her from the whole wishing thing, which was a plus. "You still fight us," she said.

"I defend myself," Danny corrected, "until I can get away. Today aside, have I hurt any of you? I haven't even hit the Red Huntress, and she tracks me down a lot more often than you two do." He sighed. "If I'd wanted to escape," he said, pointing at the Ecto-Entrapper, "I could've blasted that thing to bits. You wanted to know what it does? It causes confusion, but it's temporary. It just sort of fogs your brain, like you haven't slept in days, and it takes you longer to work everything out, so you've got a slower reaction time. But it doesn't last very long."

"Then why didn't you escape if you could?"

"Because I didn't need to," Danny said. "I just wanted to talk, without having you pointing weapons at me. And we are." He started fiddling with his hands again. "But I figured you might want to know that that invention doesn't work. It's new, right? I haven't seen it before. But if you tried it on a really powerful ghost, it wouldn't do much to slow it down. It probably wouldn't even keep Plasmius in one place for five minutes."

Not to mention, he was allergic to it. Or something. Whatever effect it was supposed to have, it had gotten him stuck in his ghost form. He realized that now. Whatever mix of chemicals was in that thing had drawn out his ghost half and made it stick—like it was supposed to, he supposed. And that had only been, what, two doses of it? He couldn't remember. But since it still hadn't worn off—and probably wouldn't for a while longer, since his mother had used it again—he didn't want to risk having his parents try to use it on a regular basis in case he got in a situation like this again.

He needed this one to go into the failed inventions box, not back to the drawing board.

"Why tell me?" Maddie asked. "Isn't it to your advantage if we try to use a faulty weapon?"

"I don't want you to get hurt," Danny answered honestly. He wrinkled his nose then and added, "Besides, it makes me sneeze."

For the first time in his presence, Maddie actually laughed. It was real laughter, not just the hysterics of before. "You remind me of my son."

The smile that had been growing on Danny's face froze and faltered. "I…I do?"

"He gets that same look on his face," Maddie explained, still smiling to herself.

Danny didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything at all. He had a bad feeling that if he _did_ try saying anything, it would just make the situation worse. It was far better to just keep a smile plastered on his face and be glad that she hadn't started shooting at him again. Yet.

"Do you really think they're safe, Phantom?" Maddie asked after a moment. "Danny and Jazz and Jack and everyone else?"

Danny nodded. "I'm pretty sure that whoever did this wanted to make my life miserable, not theirs."

"Your afterlife, you mean," Maddie corrected absently. "But then who was your enemy in this? I never saw you battling anyone."

Danny stared at her blankly. He couldn't believe she couldn't see it. But then again, this was the most civil conversation he'd ever had with his mother when he was Danny Phantom. She wasn't _used_ to seeing things like this.

"It was you," he said eventually, once it became painfully clear that she was still waiting for an answer. "You and Jack. You were hunting me. I was supposed to fight you."

Maddie looked troubled by that news. "But you didn't. Not until…. Not until I forced you to." Danny didn't bother confirming that, and after a few seconds, she added, "But why us? You said yourself that the Red Huntress hunts you more often. Why not her?"

_Because you're my family_. But Danny couldn't say it. Instead, he just said, "I don't know. You have more experience than she does. That might be why." He traced a few circles on the floor with one finger, then added, "And the Red Huntress and I have called truces before, when things have gotten bad. We've worked together to defeat a common enemy. Whoever set this up probably knew that and figured we'd do it again."

"And that wasn't going to happen with us," Maddie realized.

Danny looked up at his mother, peering at her between strands of snow white hair. "You usually shoot first and ask questions never," he said. He straightened up a bit and met her gaze again. "What changed? I've been trying to get you to talk without shooting me for, I dunno, hours now. Why'd you finally listen to me? Even after you pulled out the Ecto-Entrapper, you still had a weapon trained on me. I figured you were going to blast me then and there."

Maddie frowned. "I never told you the name of the Ecto-Entrapper."

Oops. "Um, I sort of overheard Jack talking about it earlier, when I thought I might have to fight the Box Ghost. I figured this was probably it." He waved that off. "It doesn't matter. My question still stands. What changed?"

Maddie was quiet for a moment. "I realized you were telling the truth. When you said you'd tried to get into the Ghost Zone five times, I mean. Jack and I had been tracking you, and you dropped off the radar five times."

Oh. Well, that explained it. "That means I'm still fair game if we get out of this, doesn't it?"

The corners of Maddie's lips twitched. "I'm a scientist," was her reply. "I need to study something if I expect to get answers."

As if asking questions never got her answers…. But Danny didn't bother saying that. He hadn't really expected anything else. That's how it was with Valerie, after all. A truce until the bad time was over, and once everything was back to normal, the hunt was back on, because that _was_ normal.

He could deal with that, though. Even if it would've been nice to get his family off his back. And a lot easier if he ever ended up in a situation where he had to tell them his secret, or they figured it out, or something. But as it was, well, yeah, this was okay for now. His dad's aim was still horrendous, and maybe if his mother was ever tracking him down on her own, he could suggest a quick conversation rather than a quick battle.

Anything to save him from being strapped to that table again.

"It's a funny thing, Phantom," Maddie commented. "I didn't think I'd see the day when a ghost would tell me the truth. The whole truth, at any rate."

Well, the whole half of the whole truth, anyway. "Just because I'm a ghost," Danny said, "it doesn't mean that every word out of my mouth is a lie."

"Ghosts lie to save themselves and to trick us," Maddie said simply. "It's part of their devious nature."

"Thanks," Danny said sarcastically. "But did it ever occur to you that you might be wrong? I'm not evil at my core, Maddie. I'm trying to be good. I just, I dunno, I thought that maybe, because you finally agreed to talk to me, that you might've…." He trailed off. "Well, that you might've seen a bit more of my true nature," he said, "instead of just what you assume is my true nature, since I'm a ghost." His mother looked surprised, maybe because he'd challenged her, and he took the time to form a bit more ice in his hand and offered it to her instead, just to change the subject. "How's your head?"

She looked doubtfully at the ice in his hand and then took it. "Better than it would have been," she admitted, pulling a Fenton Handkerchief out of her pocket in which to wrap the ice before holding it to her head.

Now she was avoiding his gaze, and it was a moment before Danny realized why. She was having second thoughts about the whole 'all ghosts were evil' thing. He wasn't sure if it was temporary or not—probably was, until she gathered more evidence—but if he could even get her to admit that he wasn't evil, then that would be a definite improvement.

Then again, considering it was his mom, maybe he should settle for 'not evil at the moment' or 'not always evil' or something. His parents were pretty stuck in their ways. Not that he could _really_ blame them. They hadn't met too many of the good ghosts, or if they had, it had just been on off-days. But considering that they hadn't even seen a ghost until they'd gotten the Fenton Ghost Portal up and running—thanks to him—well, maybe he could sort of understand where they were coming from. A bit. But it was just ignorance on their part, really, which was funny, because they were scientists and inventors and were supposed to be studying stuff to learn.

Except, well, that's what they _were_ doing. That's what his mom had tried with him in the lab. It just didn't bother her because she didn't think, she didn't know, she didn't _realize_ that a ghost wasn't only what she thought it was. Well, he was pretty sure a few were just ghosts and always had been, but there were definitely others who had once been human. Or, in Cujo's case, dogs. But they still had feelings, and not just anger and a thirst for vengeance and stuff like that.

"I suppose," Maddie said at length, "that I'd always thought you had already shown your true colours."

"You're thinking about the time with the mayor, aren't you?" Danny guessed. "I'm telling you, I was framed."

"Perhaps." Maddie finally looked back at him. "But with only your word to go on, I'll never really know." She stopped for a moment, then said, "With humans, when they're put in difficult situations, in trying circumstances, that's when their true nature surfaces. The devious ones, the helpful ones, the self-serving or the sacrificing, and everything in between."

"And with ghosts?" Danny prompted when she didn't say anything for a while.

"I don't know," Maddie replied. "If they all tried to model humans as closely as you, I'd say we could see their true colours if they were ever faced with a similar situation."

"So you're admitting that you don't think I'm evil through and through?"

Maddie didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "You attacked me."

Oh, great. She was going back to that. He lost control for one _minute_, and—

But maybe she wasn't far off the mark, if he thought about Dan. Maybe it was only his human half that kept him from going evil. Maybe— No, no, no, he wasn't going to think like that. He was _good_. He hadn't chosen that path. And half the evil that made up Dan came from Vlad, anyway. "Not intentionally," he said. "It was self defence, sort of. Like a kind of instinct that kicked in."

Maddie gave him a small smile. "And then you helped me," she added quietly. "You're of two natures, Phantom. That's what I've realized."

Danny stared at her. That was…a bit more accurate of an assessment than he'd expected her to come up with. Not that she knew that, of course. But still. It was weird. Maybe his mother was more intuitive than he'd thought; for all that she hadn't realized that there was a ghost living under the roof of her house, she couldn't have come up with a better way to describe him without knowing the truth.

"Thanks," he finally said. It was better than her thinking he was completely evil. It was an improvement; he wasn't going to try to go one better yet. If that were even possible without her knowing his secret, it would definitely take time.

"But I have to say," Maddie continued, "I do wish that the two of us were safely back home."

And before Danny could open his mouth to warn his mom, to tell her to stop, she was gone.

* * *

><p>AN: So, we're just down to Danny now. It took me a while, didn't it? Sorry about that. Anyway, many thanks to everyone who had been taking the time to read and review.


	17. Chapter 17

"Crud," Danny muttered, getting to his feet. He was all alone again. Completely cut off. Isolated.

He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing that this would just be over. He was sore. He was tired. A small part of him was hungry, and thirsty, and definitely quailing at the thought of no human contact for who knew how long. Until he figured this out, if he ever figured this out.

He just wanted to go home.

His parents might not accept Phantom, but after this, he couldn't deny that, so long as they weren't together, he got along with them significantly better if the situation warranted it. It was kind of like with Valerie, though that was more of a common enemy thing that got her to stop shooting at him for a bit, so maybe it wasn't really like that, but…. This was more…. This went deeper. This had approached understanding, not just acknowledgement.

It had almost felt like, if he'd been stuck with his mother for longer, she might have actually truly started to believe him. Even go so far as to change a few of her core beliefs, at least where he was concerned. But then, just as she was starting to understand, just as she was getting to see who he really was, she'd wished herself away.

"_Danny_!"

Danny jumped and flipped around, swearing he'd heard Sam's voice and not willing to believe his ears, but sure enough…. There was his mom, and his dad, and Jazz, and Sam and Tuck and Valerie and—Vlad? Really? _Vlad_? He could've done without Vlad.

But still. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

"I _told_ you Danny Phantom wasn't behind this," Jazz was saying. "Look at the state of him. He was dragged into this just like the rest of us."

Danny cringed. He knew Jazz was going to corner him later. She'd be telling him he had to talk about it, he had to let it out, he couldn't keep it bottled up with everything else, so many secrets weren't _healthy_, and besides, she was his sister, and she already knew this secret of his, and if she had to figure out the rest of them, she would, but she'd much rather he just _told_ her, or at _least_ told Sam and Tucker.

But, frankly, he'd gladly tell her. Well, some of it, at least. He'd tell her because he could. Because it was over, whatever it had been, and he was back with everyone else.

Then Danny blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, the world was frozen in time.

"Clockwork?" he asked, looking at the ghost in front of him before glancing down at his chest and seeing the familiar time medallion. He looked around the room, seeing his family and Vlad caught in time, Jazz still arguing her point, one hand flung out in his direction—but none of them were looking at him, he noticed.

And Sam and Tucker weren't there.

At Danny's questioning gaze, Clockwork said, "They will be back. I sent them to the Far Frozen to tell Frostbite the news of your safe return, and for them to retrieve the vehicle they had left behind."

It sounded like a long story, and Danny made a mental note to get it out of Sam and Tucker tomorrow…. Or was it already tomorrow? He had absolutely no idea what time it was, and having it frozen on him didn't help. "What happened?" Danny asked, figuring that was the most important question.

"Desiree granted a wish, touching it with the old, wild magic, and it had consequences beyond her imagining," Clockwork answered, "but now it has been corrected."

Okay, he'd really have to talk to Sam and Tuck. They could probably make more sense out of that. He couldn't really think straight right now. "Okay, but if it's been corrected, why are you here?"

A smile twitched into existence on Clockwork's face. "It is not only Danny Phantom who must be seen returning."

Oh. "But I can't change back. Dad's invention, this Ecto-Entrapper thing…. It doesn't work exactly like he thought it would, or maybe it does, but—"

Clockwork cut across Danny's babbling, saying, "Its effects are lessened by time, are they not?" At Danny's hesitant nod, Clockwork said, "Then consider the necessary amount of time passed."

Ghost of Time. Right. It wasn't the first time Clockwork had done him a favour, and Danny rather hoped it wouldn't be the last. Maybe the whole freezing time thing had extra benefits, after all, if it cancelled out things like this.

Reaching inside himself, Danny found a tiny piece of himself that had eluded him before, and he changed back in Danny Fenton.

He immediately sat down, feeling more tired than before. More tired, but less sore. It was a typical consequence of the regeneration process that allowed for quick healing. If he'd had to bear the full brunt of his ghostly injuries as a human, he might've been dead completely by now.

"Thanks," Danny whispered, looking up at Clockwork. Clockwork had done so much for him in the past, and he looked out for him, and it just…. It felt good to know that there were people and ghosts who cared so much about him.

"Your friends will be at the portal now," Clockwork said, offering Danny a hand to pull him to his feet. "We'd best let them in."

Within moments—was that still something that could be said when time was frozen, or at least when the rest of time was frozen?—Sam and Tucker had eased the Spectre Speeder back into the FentonWorks lab and had clambered out and squeezed the breath out of Danny.

"You're okay," Sam was saying. "I'm so… You're _sure_ you're okay?"

"He's fine," Tucker said, laughing. He stopped, looked at Danny and Sam for a moment, then added, "Of course, I don't know whether he'd be better if you let go or if you just kept hanging on."

Danny blushed and saw that Sam had done the same as she immediately backed off, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry," she muttered. "Just got carried away."

"It's okay," Danny said, giving her a silly grin in return.

"Of course it's okay," Tucker said. "I mean, what with you two being lovebirds and all."

"We're not lovebirds!" Sam and Danny chimed their reply in unison, then flushed a deeper red and avoided each other's gaze.

"It is time we returned," Clockwork said, his voice giving no indication of his thoughts about the reunion. Then, when the four of them were back in Casper High, again courtesy of Clockwork's portals, Danny found a position out of line of everyone's sight. Clockwork held up his staff once more and said, "Time _in_." The medallions disappeared, as did Clockwork himself, and life resumed.

"He's slippery is what he is," Jack Fenton said, glancing over at the place where Danny had been standing as Phantom. "He's gone."

"But we can't get excited," Maddie was saying, though she looked surprised. "Danny's still not home. _Our_ Danny," she added, shooting Sam a look.

"I thought he'd be next," Sam said quietly. "I didn't get a good look at Phantom when he showed up, and when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye, I assumed it _would_ be Danny."

"It's okay, Sam." From Valerie, that was surprising. She wouldn't have been the one Danny would've picked to comfort Sam. "Phantom's gone, and we'll find Danny soon. We've got to."

Danny took that as his cue to stumble out of the wings of the stage, groaning a bit. "Do any of you guys feel kind of queasy?" he asked.

"Danny!" His parents were by his side in a flash, followed by everyone else.

"Time-sickness, I'd guess," Maddie said after looking him over. "Honey, are you all right?"

Danny took a few big breaths before nodding. "Yeah, I think so. Do you know what happened?"

"We brought you back," Valerie said, "from wherever that evil ghost had taken you."

Danny decided not to argue with her on that one. He wasn't entirely sure she was talking about Phantom, anyway. "Thanks."

"And it's clearly earlier here than it was where we were, Danny," Maddie said, still giving him a look that told Danny that she didn't believe he was perfectly all right, "or I doubt your friends would all be able to be out so late."

So that was how she'd arrived at the whole 'time-sickness' thing. Or maybe she'd been here long enough to get a very quick explanation out of the others. Either way, it was actually a bit of a relief; it meant _he_ didn't have to come up with an explanation. "So what time is it?"

"I think you'll find it's time for dinner, little badger," Vlad said, ignoring Danny's glare. "Unfortunately, I can't join you. I must rush off, but I do expect I'll be seeing you soon."

As Vlad prepared—finally—to take his leave, Danny tried not to think about how long Vlad's 'welcome back' hug to his mom had probably been or the fact that his parting words probably meant Vlad was going to make his life miserable very soon. He just hoped he'd have the decency to let him have a good night's sleep for once. After everything that had happened, he could really use it.

"Back off to Wisconsin?" Jack asked. Without waiting for an answer, he clapped Vlad on the back, causing the man to stumble for a bit before he regained his footing. "Well, we owe you one, Vladdy! I'm sure we wouldn't have all gotten back safely if it hadn't been for you." Perhaps catching the look on Sam's and Tucker's faces, if not Valerie's, Jack hurriedly added, "And, uh, these kids, too, of course."

"I'd better be going, too," Valerie said after a few seconds, breaking what had threatened to become a really awkward silence. "My dad's going to be wondering where I am." She looked at Danny, Sam, and Tucker for a moment before saying, "We should hang out some time. It's been a while."

Danny saw Sam grit her teeth, but thankfully Tucker cut in with something so he didn't have to. "Sure, Val. We'll see you in school on Monday." This response received a beaming smile from Valerie and a sharp glare from Sam. Danny knew why; she still didn't think it was safe to hang out too much with Valerie. But she _was_ one of their friends now, sort of, so they should be able to talk outside of class, shouldn't they?

Well, it would work out fine until a ghost showed up, at least.

"I'll give you a ride home, Valerie," Vlad offered. "It'll save your father the trip."

"Thanks," Valerie said. "Dad's working, anyway, so I'd have to hang around for a bit before we could head home."

When Vlad and Valerie were gone, Sam and Tucker made a few quick excuses to leave, too. Danny didn't miss the silent hints they were giving him: they'd talk later—tonight if he could manage it, tomorrow if he couldn't. Maybe things would make more sense when he knew the entire story. As it was, he had a feeling they knew more than he did.

It was Jazz who came to Danny's rescue when she caught him stifling a yawn. She yawned herself, in such a convincing way that Danny wasn't entirely sure it was for show, then said, "I'm not sure about everyone else, but I think I'd just like to get home to bed. Do you think we can clean this up tomorrow, Mom?"

Maddie nodded. "I'm not sure I'd have the energy to pack it all up tonight. There were too many hours in this day for me, and there's no harm in leaving it until morning. Besides," she added, reaching over to ruffle Danny's hair, "Danny's ill, and he needs his rest. How's your cold, sweetie?"

"Not as bad as it was," Danny admitted. And as long as the Ecto-Entrapper stayed off, it wouldn't ever be bad again. Not that kind of induced cold, anyway. "I think you were right. It might've just been the time shift thing."

"You still look dead on your feet, honey," Maddie said. "You need to get some rest. We all do."

"I'll drive home," Jack said, and no one questioned him. They'd get home faster, and he hadn't spent as long in the other reality or whatever it was as Maddie had, and Jazz was pretending to be too tired to care.

Danny practically collapsed onto his bed when he got into his room. He sent a quick text message to Sam and Tucker saying he'd meet them tomorrow, and then he just closed his eyes. He needed to get sleep while he could, because with his luck, some ghost would come and his ghost sense would wake him up and he'd have to deal with whoever it was—though Danny decided that if it turned out to be the Box Ghost again, he'd just leave him be until morning.

Besides, even if he didn't count all the times he'd fallen asleep in school, it wouldn't be the first time he'd slept in his clothes. And, right now, he really didn't care one way or the other.

* * *

><p>It was the crash that woke Maddie. She normally slept pretty well—if she was the first one to fall asleep, she could even ignore Jack's snores—but that particular crash had sounded awfully close. She eased her way out of bed, careful not to wake her still-sleeping husband, and walked to the window.<p>

There was Phantom, picking himself up and out of the crater that had formed in the street with his fall. With him was another ghost she recognized as Skulker, and right now, it looked like he had the upper hand. She couldn't hear what they were calling to each other now, but she had no doubt it would be the usual exchange of witty banter that Phantom used in all his fights.

Maddie grabbed her housecoat and headed downstairs. She also picked up an ectogun and a Fenton Fisher before slipping on her shoes and edging outside. The fight was still going on about a block down. The two ghosts were exchanging fire and words, and Maddie was rather reluctant to get closer when she wasn't properly dressed. She had far more things in the pockets of her hazmat suit than the equivalent of an ectogun and a Fenton Fisher.

"You're slow tonight, whelp," Skulker taunted when Phantom wasn't quick enough to get out of the way of a net. "That was almost too easy."

"Sorry I couldn't give you a good run," Phantom replied sarcastically. "I'll have to make a note to do better next time. Or maybe _you_ could come sometime when I'm _not_ trying to sleep."

"Ghosts sleep?" Maddie repeated, surprised. She knew they rested to recharge their energy, saving it rather than spending it, but she hadn't thought that they'd state it in such human terms.

Then again, Phantom had been the one to say it. He had a certain liking for human ways.

"It's better to catch one's prey off its guard," Skulker said bluntly. "As you can see, it gave me the advantage I needed."

Phantom sighed. "You know, there's a reason that I'm not just a pelt on your wall, or your bed, or whatever—which is still gross, by the way, even if you do collect unique things. So don't say _I'm_ the slow one when _you're_ the one who's just lost his prey. Again."

Skulker's immediate protest—"I haven't lost—"—was abruptly caught off when the ectoblast Phantom had been building up was released in a burst of power. The net holding him disintegrated, and the ghost boy lost no time in producing a Fenton Thermos and taking advantage of his surprised (and suitably weakened) opponent.

Phantom chuckled as he capped the thermos. "Now _that's_ what's too easy," he said to himself. "It's a good thing I can fight off these guys when I'm half asleep."

Maddie wasn't sure about half asleep, but Phantom certainly must have been resting. He looked considerably better than the last time she had seen him. His suit was repaired and he bore no physical sign of his earlier trauma. But he was, as Skulker had noted, moving slower, and Maddie had noticed him wince once or twice, and she wasn't convinced that that was simply from injuries incurred in this latest skirmish.

She tucked the ectogun away, figuring she wouldn't need it—yet—and instead cast the line of the Fenton Fisher. It was not until she'd hooked his boot—well, actually, the line had wrapped around his ankle—that Phantom noticed her presence. He smiled at her sheepishly and tried to tuck the thermos out of sight, all the while failing to mask his nervousness as he kept glancing down at his trapped foot.

When Phantom was floating in front of her, at her eye level, Maddie did him the courtesy of untying the line. He looked surprised but grateful. "I wasn't sure if you'd run," Maddie told him quietly, "but I have a few questions for you."

"Um…. Okay." Phantom rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Shoot." The minute the word was out of his mouth, he looked panicked, and he quickly added, "The questions, not me! I mean, ask away. No need to pull out any guns…."

"I won't need to if you answer my questions," Maddie told him. Phantom still looked distrustful, but at least he didn't fly away—or try to fight back now in anticipation of things getting worse. "I've been thinking about earlier," Maddie continued. "You told me the truth."

"Yeah," Phantom said slowly, "but we covered that already, didn't we? I had no reason to lie to you."

"Let me finish," Maddie said. "When we were in the lab, and you told me that Jack had wished himself back to Jazz, I hadn't believed you because I'd wished to be with Danny and I hadn't moved."

Phantom looked uncomfortable now. "Yeah, but—"

"Your explanations don't make any sense anymore," Maddie said. "Danny was the last one of us to make it back, so he can't have been 'in transit', as you'd put it. And clearly I was affected by the wishing, as I later wished myself back home. But Danny—"

"I don't know," Phantom interrupted. "Maybe he was still in the house. Maybe we just didn't see him. We were kinda preoccupied. I was trying to get out and you were trying to keep me there."

"But if Danny had been there," Maddie protested, "he would've said something."

"Maybe he was asleep?"

Maddie shook her head. "He wouldn't have slept through that."

"So maybe he was, I dunno, unconscious or something, but, Maddie, before you jump to conclusions, it wasn't my fault!"

Maddie sighed and fixed Phantom with a look that her children knew quite well. She meant business. She wanted answers, and she was going to get them, one way or another, no matter how long it took. "You know more than you're telling me, Phantom. About everything."

"Not about everything," Phantom mumbled, avoiding her gaze.

"You took me out of the house," Maddie reminded him gently. "Did you take Danny, too?"

Phantom raised his head again and looked at her, then slowly shook his head. "Danny made it out by himself. You were the only human I brought out of the house."

"But you knew he was there?"

"I knew it was possible," Phantom admitted, "when you didn't move after you made the wish."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"It wouldn't've helped," Phantom said. "You wouldn't've listened. You still thought Danny was back with Jazz and Jack at that point."

Maddie opened her mouth but found she couldn't exactly deny what Phantom had said. "You could have tried saying something to save yourself," she reasoned. "Even if you did think I wouldn't have listened, you could have tried."

Phantom shrugged. "I wouldn't have been able to show you Danny Fenton, so it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. I already knew that." He fell silent for a moment. "What else did you want to ask?"

In truth, Maddie had a million questions, but at that precise moment, she couldn't find anything to say. "Why are you being so helpful?" was what finally tumbled out of her mouth.

"This is how I always am," Phantom said, looking her straight in the eye this time. "If anything's changed, it's because you're seeing me differently."

This time, it was Maddie who looked away. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"For doubting me? Yeah, well, it's okay, I guess. I sort of expect it from you. Ghosts lie, right?"

"For hurting you," Maddie said, glancing at him.

Phantom froze. "I thought you didn't care about that," he said slowly.

"It was easier when I didn't," Maddie told him softly.

Phantom crossed his arms. "See how you feel in the morning," he said bluntly. "That feeling might go away, and then things'll be back to normal for you. It's late, and you're tired, and you're probably not thinking straight, and by breakfast tomorrow, you'll have come up with a million excuses for my actions. And then I'll be back to that evil ghost kid, a no-good, filthy, lying piece of ectoplasmic scum that deserves to get ripped apart molecule by molecule."

Maddie was startled by the venom in Phantom's words. He sounded…not bitter, exactly, but resentful, as if he didn't believe her but wished he could. As if she were the one who couldn't be trusted, as if she were the one who was lying.

But what if Phantom was right? Once she talked things over with Jack, there probably would be reasons to be found to explain Phantom's actions, and then she might—

"You should get back to bed," Phantom said, and the edge in his tone was gone again. "But, just remember, even if you do just decide that I was trying to manipulate you or something: if you want to talk, I'll talk. Just as equals, though, like this, not with me caught in a cage or strapped to a table or tied up or anything. Okay?"

"All right," Maddie agreed quietly. "But can I have the Fenton Thermos?"

"The—what?"

"The Fenton Thermos," Maddie repeated patiently. "It is mine, after all. Not yours."

"But I need…." Phantom's protests died away as he took in the look on her face. "I need it," he finished weakly.

"I'm sure you'll steal it again later," Maddie said, "but I, for one, would like to see that ghost back in the Ghost Zone as soon as possible." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Besides, I need to add it to the inventory."

"Inventory?" Phantom repeated.

Maddie opened her eyes again. "So we can keep track of our inventions," she said simply. "What we have, what we need, and what you steal."

"Oh, man," Phantom groaned. "I'm not _that_ bad. I mean, this is the thermos you guys _threw_ at me, hardly more than a month after you got the Ghost Portal up and running. And besides, I'm not the only one who's taken stuff, either. _Plasmius_ stole the—"

"I don't want to hear it," Maddie said, holding up one hand. "You're the one I've seen fighting with our technology, not Plasmius."

"What about Skulker, or Technus, or—?"

"You're the one I've seen," Maddie repeated. "And, as such, you clearly help yourself to our things more often than we know about. We're just trying to change that."

"I should really pay more attention," Phantom muttered. But he shoved the thermos towards Maddie and flew off before she could question him about that particular comment, which was rather unfortunate. She'd gotten what she'd come for, yes, but it didn't feel like enough.

No matter. She could work this out. She could figure out how much truth there was in Phantom's words and how much of his actions were nothing more than ploys. She and Jack had been hunting the ghost boy for over a year now. Surely Danny Phantom couldn't elude them again, not forever. She'd have to get answers—real answers—sometime.

Maddie sighed and started back to the house. As much as she hated to admit it, Phantom was right. She might very well change her tune come morning. Right now, she still felt wrapped up in the same surreal feeling that had permeated the fearful day just passed.

Tomorrow would be better. She'd go home, make a note to log the thermos in the morning, check on the kids, and head back to bed. She might need the Fenton Earplugs to muffle Jack's snores, but she'd get some rest, and then she'd see how things looked in the morning. After all, things usually did look better in the morning, and she could face whatever tomorrow decided to bring.

She always did. And she always would. Especially if the cause of her troubles seemed to be rooted in ghosts.

After all, she was a Fenton, and she was a Fenton by choice. If anyone could work things out, it would be her. She knew that, seeing as ghosts were involved, the answers wouldn't necessarily be logical. But if she could just find them, if she could work out precisely what had happened, what Phantom hadn't told her, then maybe…. Maybe then she'd understand, and that's what she really wanted.

She was a scientist, after all. Between being a scientist and a Fenton, studying ghosts was her stock and trade. So tomorrow, she'd start trying to work things out. She could only hope that tomorrow would bring the answers to the questions that she had today.

_Fin_

* * *

><p>AN: Well, that was fun, at least for me and presumably for you, if you've bothered to read this far. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and review (and point out the occasional mistake!), namely Song of the Skies, Elle Aitch, The Cinderninja, seantriana, Shaddow the Spirit, coopt98, Wilona Riva, yuwof, Turkeyhead987, Anthiena, Ace in the Sleeve, Elvaro, dpgrl4life, spirit, Commander Ael, Okumura Rin, Exess, Karebear77, SailorSea, Chrizzie1, lyberator, Codiak, Amazing Bluie, allycat338, ckittykatty, FangirlStephie, VampireFrootloopsRule, anon, and BrandyMyDog.

And, yes, I am well aware that that really should be and indeed probably is a different thermos than the one that was thrown at Danny in the first episode, given the few that have been destroyed and the one that Dan is in, but Maddie doesn't need to know that if she doesn't already. *grins*

I may post a 'missing scene' as an additional chapter if I take a stab at the round of confessions that I neatly skipped over here, so, fair warning: if something does pop up after this chapter, it won't be an epilogue.


	18. Missing Scene

A/N: So, uh, note that this is a missing scene as opposed to something that comes after the credits. It's where everyone gets to talk about how they feel. The part I originally skipped. Not the long-in-coming revelation that many of you suspected I would get to.

It's a bit cheesy, but it shows you some of the things that might be said in such a session. (I am sure it could turn out many different ways.)

* * *

><p>"Do you guys want me to start?" Jazz asked, glancing around at the others. They were sitting in a circle, facing each other, in the hope that it would help them focus their emotional energy.<p>

"Might as well," Sam said. "You probably know more about what we're doing than the rest of us."

Jazz gave her a weak smile in return. "Okay, then," she said. She thought for a moment, took a deep breath, and started, "It probably isn't a secret that my parents embarrass me, but I wouldn't be _me_ without them. Mom, especially, has pushed me to be my best. I know she wants me to follow in her footsteps, but my first love is psychology, and I can't turn my back on that. But just because I'm not embracing ghost hunting, I've realized that I can't ignore it, either. Like Dad always says, I'm a Fenton. It's in my blood. So, if things get rough, I'll grab an ectogun. I need to help.

"It's hardest," Jazz continued, "when I can't. When I know my family is getting into something dangerous and that I'd be more of a hindrance than a help. When I have to watch them leave, knowing they'll get hurt and I'll have to do my best to help them stitch up the wounds, but knowing that they're doing it because it's the right thing. That they're doing what they can to help, to protect our town from ghosts. And I love them for it. I'm proud. I might moan and wish I had a normal family, but then they wouldn't be my family. It wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be right. I've learned to deal with all sorts of crazy things and to adapt to all kinds of situations because of the family I've been raised in. It took me a long time to accept that, to admit that I'm a better person because of them than I would be if I hadn't had them. But I think I am."

Jazz stopped for a moment. Then, quietly, "And that's why I can't lose them. I might lock horns with Mom sometimes, and I might drive Danny around the bend and we might end up yelling at each other and fighting just like any other siblings, but we're family, and I love them, and we wouldn't be who we are without each other. So I wouldn't change things. I need them. I need Mom and Dad to remind me of who I am, and I need Danny to remind me who I can be. I need someone to look up to. Some people have heroes that they'll never meet, but I've had the pleasure of knowing mine personally. I just…. I don't want that to change. Not like this. We're Fentons. We stick together. Especially in ghost-induced crises like this. Because that's who we are."

Jack was sniffling but smiling at her, clearly proud of his eldest child. "That's right, Jazzerincess," he said, digging a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at his eyes. "We're Fentons. We stick together, and we'll beat whatever that evil ghost did! We'll get our family back. I don't know what I'd do without Maddie and you and Danny. I'm not going to let a ghost stand in the way of my family! Jack Fenton will _never _let a ghost take his family away."

Jazz, who had caught sight of Vlad's scowl, couldn't suppress her smile. "You'd rip apart any ghost that would try?"

"Molecule by molecule," Jack swore. "Because my family is the most important thing in my life."

"More important than ghost hunting?" Tucker asked, sounding like he'd spoken without thinking. Sam elbowed him, and he yelped.

Jack, however, didn't seem to find the question odd. Jazz wondered if it was because he was well aware of his reputation. Her father certainly did seem to be smarter than anyone gave him credit for. "More important than ghost hunting," Jack assured him. "I'm passionate about ghost hunting, but I love my family." Looking pointedly at Jazz, he added, "But like you said, Jazzy-pants, ghost hunting can be dangerous. That's why your mom and I want to make sure you and Danny can use all our weapons and handle yourselves in a fight. You and Danny may not share our passion for ghost hunting, but you're Fentons, and it's in your blood. And as far as ghosts are concerned, that means you have a target on your back. You kids need to be able to take care of yourselves." A little quieter, he added, "Especially when things like this happen and we can't protect you."

"Least that explains why he keeps telling us about everything he invents, too," Tucker muttered, "given how much time we spend around Danny."

Sam elbowed him again. "I know what you mean, Mr. Fenton. Tucker and Danny and I watch each other's backs. I mean, high school isn't dangerous like ghost hunting, but we watch out for each other. We're good friends, and we don't keep secrets from each other. It's always good to have someone to talk to, to depend upon. Danny's been like that. He's been, well…."

"A great friend," Tucker cut in, perhaps finally taking pity on Sam, whose cheeks had started to burn. "And he'll always be a great friend. I mean, man, he's put up with a lot from us, and we've put up with a lot from him. With everything we've been through, we couldn't _not_ be great friends. I mean, Danny and Sam still have to admit their feelings for each other, but—"

"_Tucker_!"

"Well, you do," Tucker said frankly.

"He's got a point," Valerie added. "Danny's a great guy. He's sweet and funny and—"

"We're not talking about his character here!" Sam burst out. "We _know_ he's all of that, but saying what he is isn't going to bring him back, is it? We _need_ Danny. Even if we all don't want to admit it, every one of us here needs him. Not just his blood family. Jazz and Mr. Fenton are right. They're a family, and you can't just take away a piece or two and expect everything to be fine and dandy. They need each other, and all of us need them. What kind of state would Amity Park be in if the Fentons weren't here?"

"Well, it would, in all likelihood, be dealing with fewer ghosts," Vlad commented. "That portal of yours, Jack, did open up a stable gateway. It was practically an invitation."

"It was for science," Jack argued. "V-Man, you of all people know that."

"Oh, yes, of course, Jack. I _do_ know better than anyone what you've created in the name of science." Jazz noticed the bitterness in Vlad's voice, even if her father was blithely unaware of it. The trace, however, was gone as Vlad continued, saying, "But the children raise a good point. Amity Park would be in quite a different state if it weren't for your family. I would hate to see things change."

"Yeah," Tucker added. "I mean, the Red Huntress does a pretty good job of fighting off ghosts, but she can't be everywhere at once. We need you guys in town. Without the Fentons, well, Amity Park probably would've been destroyed even before it got sucked into the Ghost Zone."

Valerie smiled. "That's true," she agreed. "That Ghost Shield you and Mrs. Fenton put up that time saved a lot of people from getting hurt, and you guys helped calm everyone down. You sorta united the town and kept people from going nuts and doing something stupid." Her smile changed to a smirk then as she added, "And if the rumours are anything to go by, Danny's done the same, organizing a bunch of kids to fight off ghosts when all the adults were caught in a scheming spook's plot. And Danny's a great friend to boot, just like Sam and Tucker say. A genuine one, someone who doesn't turn you away when everyone else does. I know that better than any of you guys. And you and Mrs. Fenton are really welcoming, too," Valerie added, looking over at Jack.

"Well, of course," Vlad put in. "Maddie wouldn't _dream_ of turning away someone in need, would she?"

Jack nodded happily. "I'm so lucky to have married her, Vladdy! She and the kids are the best things that have ever happened to me. I wouldn't be half the man I am without them!"

"And I've seen Mrs. Fenton in action," Valerie added. "She's got a pretty good shot, so I can appreciate more than just her character. When it comes to ghosts, we probably really _do_ need all you guys, more than any of the people here want to admit. You've saved our skin more than once."

"And they'll keep at it," Sam added.

"All of you will," Tucker put in. "The entire Fenton family. Fighting off ghosts like true Fentons. Right?"

Jack beamed. "That's the spirit!" he said. "We stick together and do what we do best: fight off ghosts!"

"Yes," Vlad agreed. "Your family can be quite invaluable by those terms. But I'm sure that none of us would be here if we didn't have some deeper connection to Maddie or Daniel. We all know them _quite_ well." He paused. "If I've learned anything over the years, it's that some people spend their lives as unwitting pawns. But that isn't the role Maddie plays, and she's taught Daniel well. He balks at that role, as he should. I feel I share a particular connection, shall we say, with young Daniel. At times, he reminds me of myself when I was younger. Since I've moved to Amity Park, it has been… enlightening to watch him grown and develop. I care for both Maddie and Daniel deeply, as I'm sure you are all well aware. To lose Daniel would be to lose my own son. To lose Maddie…."

"Would be like losing a sister, right?" Jazz asked, well aware that that wasn't what Vlad meant and still terribly disturbed by that knowledge.

"I wouldn't feel complete if she weren't here," Vlad replied.

Jack smiled. "Just like Danny and his friends! That's a sign of true friendship, isn't it, Vladdy?"

Vlad's smile was tight. "Quite."

There was silence for a moment, everyone surreptitiously peering around to see if they could notice any sign of this working.

No such sign emerged.

Jazz caught Sam's and Tucker's eyes, wondering how much time they had. If they dared reveal the one thing that would surely be strong enough to break into the other realm…. The same thing that could destroy their circle or bring it closer together than ever, ruin their chance of success or ensure it….

Vlad gave a slight, nearly imperceptible shake of his head, which didn't go unnoticed by anyone who knew Danny's secret.

Well, whether she liked it or not, Jazz knew that what Vlad had said was true. He did care for her mother and brother. She didn't have to like it, especially because of his reasons behind it, but she knew he wouldn't risk their lives. He wasn't just holding out to save his own skin.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder…. What if this wasn't working because they never mentioned Phantom? How could they bring him up without giving Danny's secret away and still manage to keep people yearning for her mother and brother? Valerie's hatred of Phantom alone would probably be enough to counteract everything they'd said, and Jack Fenton still wanted to destroy him. It was usually Maddie who had to patiently remind him that they would still need something left of Phantom if they were to study him once they caught him.

"I just want them to come home," Jazz whispered, so quietly she doubted anyone else could hear her. "To be safe. To be together with them. To hug Danny and be held by Mom, just like when I was little…." She had to blink back her tears. It was hard to put on a brave face, to keep the worry at bay, to truly believe that they would get through this. "I miss them so much. I just wish this would work."

Sam reached over and squeezed her hand. "We all do," she said quietly. Slightly louder, she added, "We all want them back because we all need them back. We miss them, and we…love them."

Jazz couldn't help but smile at the huge grin on Tucker's face, even though they both knew full well Sam Manson hadn't _quite_ admitted, unquestioningly, her feelings for Danny, since she probably wouldn't until he finally admitted his. "Yeah," Tucker said. "Let's face it. We'd be lost without them. And probably in a lot more trouble."

"Friends and family," Valerie added. "Ties that bind us together, right? Through thick and thin? We need them to pull through this, and they need us. And it'll work because it has to."

"Because we're all connected," Jazz agreed softly.

"Because we aren't ourselves without them," Jack agreed, echoing the gist of Jazz's earlier words.

"Because we couldn't be, just as they wouldn't be who they are without us," Vlad continued. "No matter how they may feel about us at times."

"And because we don't know what we'd do without them," Jazz finished.

For a minute, Jazz thought it might have worked. She thought she'd caught a slight distortion in the air, the same sort that sometimes signalled an invisible but tangible Danny who wasn't being as careful as he should. But no matter how she strained her eyes to see a similar shimmer again, she couldn't, and she had to admit to herself that she'd probably imagined it.

This time, she couldn't stop the tears.

"Sh, sh," Jack said, enveloping her in a hug. "They'll be okay, Jazz. I promise. They'll be okay." The words, so like something her mother or brother would say to her, caused her to completely break down. She couldn't hold the hiccupping sobs back even though she tried. Danny and her mom were stuck somewhere, and…and….

She couldn't help. She was trying, everyone was trying, but it wasn't enough, and they were running out of time….

A startled gasp caused her to jerk her head up. Over her dad's shoulder, she could see her mom, looking bewildered and a little bit battered, but still undeniably there.

"Mom!" Jazz cried, her tears forgotten as she scrambled to her feet and ran over to envelope her mother just seconds before Jack had wrapped them both in a hug.

"It worked!" Jack was positively gleeful. "Mads, you're back! Where's Danny?"

Maddie, who had been smiling at them all, froze. "Isn't he here?"

The others had gotten to their feet, and at Maddie's question, they glanced at each other, not wanting to admit it to her. Finally, Valerie said, "No, Mrs. Fenton. He's not."

"But I haven't seen him," Maddie said. "I thought Phantom had taken him first, that Danny was the first of us to escape."

"It's not Phantom's fault," Sam insisted stubbornly.

"It's because of the wishing ghost," Jazz said. "Desiree. As far as we can tell, anyway. Phantom's not behind it."

"We're still not completely sure of that," Jack reminded her, and Jazz remembered that they hadn't told him about Valerie's wish. Well, not specifically. They hadn't told him it had been Valerie who had made the wish, only that Desiree had twisted one. And she knew just about as well as Danny that it was pretty hard to completely change how their parents felt about Phantom. They still hadn't cleared the 'not all ghosts are evil' hurdle.

"It doesn't matter," Maddie said quietly. "I was talking to him, just now. He'd said he suspected Desiree. He'd said something earlier about wishing, but it hadn't worked at first, and then I opened my mouth and made another wish and this one did exactly what Phantom said it would. It took me home and left him behind."

"Wait," Tucker said. "You wished he was back here, too?"

Maddie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "It was…. Things…changed. We talked, and I think Phantom was telling the truth for the most part. He was caught up in this just like we were." For a moment, Maddie's eyes looked haunted. "But I wouldn't even wish that on a ghost."

"Besides," Jack added, "we can't hunt him, catch him, and dissect and study him if he's stuck in a different world!"

"Reality," Jazz corrected. "Of sorts." But though her tears had dried, she still felt terribly worried. What about Danny?

Maddie smiled weakly, seeming to read her mind. "Don't worry, honey. We'll get Danny back. You kids should go off to bed and get some sleep. Jack and I…and Vlad," she added, a bit more hesitantly than she perhaps should have, "will sort this out."

"It's not late, Mrs. Fenton," Tucker said. "It's technically not even six o'clock. So we're going to stay and help you get Danny back. And Phantom, too."

"Yeah," Valerie agreed, much to the surprise of nearly everyone in the room. "I mean, I don't like Phantom after all the trouble he's caused me, but if he's going to be wiped from existence or something, it should be different than this. I hate to admit it, but he's helped save us all, too. It doesn't make up for all the trouble he causes, not really, but if he hadn't stolen that Ecto-Skeleton thing of yours and helped defeat that ghost king…."

"Pariah Dark," Vlad supplied smoothly. "Yes, we all are indebted to Phantom for that. None of us can deny it."

"You least of all," Sam muttered darkly, shooting him a glare which Vlad ignored.

"Phantom's done a lot of good for all of us," Jazz said, "whether you guys want to admit the rest of it or not, and I'm sure he has a very good reason for every bad thing it looks like he's done."

"He has _a_ reason, at any rate," Maddie said softly. "He told me a few of his excuses. But I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Danny isn't here. Phantom's explanations can't have been true, but…." She trailed off, shaking her head. "I don't have enough information to answer to all my questions."

"There, there, Maddie," Vlad said, drawing her out of Jack's embrace to give her a welcoming hug of his own. "Daniel will turn up yet. I'm sure of it. He and Phantom will both make an appearance, I daresay."

Jazz, trying to ignore how Vlad was looking at her mother, pulled Maddie away and hugged her again herself. "Phantom's not evil, Mom," she whispered. "I'm sure of it. He's different from other ghosts."

"I know he seems different, sweetie," Maddie whispered back, giving her daughter a fierce squeeze before stepping back and releasing her, "but getting your brother back is my priority, and—"

"_Danny_!" Sam's joyful cry cut across their conversation. Jazz turned and was relieved to see Danny, still in ghost mode, staring back at them in pure disbelief.

"Ghost!" Jack Fenton cried. "Where's Danny? What have you done with him?"

"_Dad_," Jazz cut in, sounding exasperated. "I _told_ you Danny Phantom wasn't behind this. Look at the state of him. He was dragged into this just like the rest of us."

As much as she hated to admit it, her little brother did look horrible, much worse than the last time she'd seen him, and she wondered what he'd been through. She'd find out tomorrow, she decided. Right now, it didn't matter, because right now, he was back.

They were all together again, and that's all that mattered.


End file.
